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LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


uoE 


J/^/P.    /+S7 


MWp^clmrefiNlRrSAfr 


/  LA  JOLLA.  CALIFORNIA    ~~ 


MY  SISTER   HENRIETTA. 


ERNEST, RENAN. 


MY  SISTER  HENRIETTA. 


SZSttf)  ipfyotofltaburc  Ellustrations 


FROM    PAINTINGS    BY 


HENRI  SCHEFFEK  AND  ARY  RENAN. 


TRANSLATED    BY 

ABBY     L.    ALGER. 


fy 


BOSTON: 
ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1895. 


Copyright,  1895, 
By    Roberts    Brothers. 


All  rights  reserved. 


SSmbtrsttg  IBrcss: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A. 


PREFACE. 


y^HIS  little  work  is  an  exact  repro- 
duction of  a  pamphlet,  one  hun- 
dred copies  of  which  were  printed  by 
Ernest  Renan,  in  September,  1862, 
under  the  following  title:  u  Henrietta 
Renan  ;  a  Memory  for  those  ivho  knew 
her."  On  the  first  page  ive  find  this 
phrase :  "  These  pages  ivere  not  in- 
tended, and  ivill  not  be  offered,  for 
publication." 

In  1SS3,  in  the  Preface  to  his  "  Mem- 
ories of  Childhood  and  Youth,"  Ernest 
Renan  wrote :  — 

"  The  person  ivho  exerted  the  strongest 
influence  upon  my  life,  I  mean  my  sister 


VI  PREFACE. 


Henrietta,  occupies  hardly  any  space  in  this 
book.  In  September,  1862,  one  year  after 
the  death  of  that  precious  friend,  I  wrote, 
for  the  few  people  who  knew  her,  a  tiny 
volume  sacred  to  her  memory.  Only  one 
hundred  copies  were  printed.  My  sister 
was  so  modest,  she  had  such  an  aversion  to 
publicity,  that  I  should  have  felt  that  she 
reproached  me  from  her  tomb,  had  I  given 
those  pages  to  the  world.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  of  adding  them  to  this  book.  But 
then  I  considered  that  it  would  be. a  sort  of 
profanation.  The  little  pamphlet  about  my 
sister  was  read  with  sympathy  by  a  few 
people,  moved  by  a  kindly  feeling  for  her 
and  for  me.  It  would  be  wrong  for  me  to 
expose  a  memory  which  is  sacred  to  me  to 
the  arrogant  criticism  which  all  who  buy  a 
book  are  at  liberty  to  utter.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  to  insert  these  pages  about  my  sister 
in  a  volume  offered  for  sale  ivould  be  as 
base  as  to  expose  her  portrait  in  an  auction 


PREFACE.  Vll 


room.  The  pamphlet  therefore  will  not  be 
reprinted  until  after  my  death.  Some  of 
my  dear  one's  letters  may  then  be  added  to 
it,  the  selection  to  be  made  by  me  during  my 
lifer 

In  a  codicil  to  his  will,  dated  Nov. 
4,  1888,  Ernest  Benan  authorized  the 
present  reprint,  saying :  "  My  wife 
will  arrange  for  the  publication  of  my 
little  volume  of  reminiscences  of  my 
sister  Henrietta,  as  may  seem  best  to 
her."  In  fact,  the  present  reprint  was 
prepared  by  Madame  Cornelia  Benan. 
The  selection  of  letters  written  by  Hen- 
rietta Benan  was  never  made  by  her 
brother.  The  number  of  these  letters 
prevents  their  insertion  in  this  publi- 
cation, and  they  will  form  a  volume  by 
themselves  Inter  on. 


Hist  of  ${jotogrnburc  Illustrations* 


Henrietta  Renan Frontispiece 

From  a  Photograph. 

PAGE 

House    in    which    Ernest    Renan    was 

born,  at  treguier io 

Spire  of  Treguier  Cathedral      ...  13 

Cloisters  of  Treguier  Cathedral  .     .  16 

Ghazir  Bay 52 

Ernest  Renan 73 

From  a  Painting  by  Henri  Scheffer  (i860). 

House  at  Amschit .     106 


MY   SISTER  HENRIETTA. 


/TVHE  memory  of  men  is  but  an  im- 
perceptible trace  of  the  furrow 
which  each  of  us  leaves  upon  the 
bosom  of  infinity.  And  yet  it  is  no 
vain  thing.  The  consciousness  of  hu- 
manity is  the  highest  reflective  image 
that  we  know  of  the  total  conscious- 
ness of  the  universe.  The  esteem  of 
a  single  individual  is  a  part  of  the  ab- 
solute Justice.  Therefore,  although 
noble  lives  need  no  other  memory 
than  that  of  God,  there  has  in  all 
ages    been    an    effort    to    make    their 


10  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

image  permanent.  I  should  be  the 
more  guilty  did  I  fail  to  render  this 
duty  to  my  sister  Henrietta,  since  I 
alone  knew  the  treasures  of  that  elect 
soul.  Her  timidity,  her  reserve,  her 
fixed  opinion  that  a  woman  should 
live  in  retirement,  cast  over  her  rare 
qualities  a  veil  which  very  few  were 
permitted  to  lift.  But  those  who  be- 
longed to  the  select  few  to  whom 
she  showed  herself  as  she  really  was, 
would  blame  me  if  I  did  not  strive  to 
bring  together  all  which  may  com- 
plete their  memories. 

I. 

My  sister  Henrietta  was  born  at 
Treguier,  on  July  22,  1811.  Her 
life    was   early   saddened    and    filled 


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MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  11 

with  stern  duties.  She  never  knew 
other  joys  than  those  bestowed  by 
virtue  and  affection.  She  inherited 
from  our  father  a  melancholy  disposi- 
tion, which  left  her  little  taste  for 
commonplace  amusements,  and  even 
inspired  her  with  a  certain  disposition 
to  shun  the  world  and  its  pleasures. 
She  had  nothing  of  the  lively,  gay, 
and  sprightly  nature  which  my  mother 
retained  even  in  her  beautiful  and 
vigorous  old  age.  Her  religious  sen- 
timents, at  first  restricted  to  the  doc- 
trines of  Catholicism,  were  always 
very  profound.  Treguier,  the  little 
town  where  we  were  born,  is  an  an- 
cient episcopal  city,  rich  in  poetic 
impressions.  It  was  once  one  of  those 
grand  monastic  towns,  after  the  Welsh 
and  Irish  fashion,  founded  by  Breton 


12  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 


emigrants  of  the  sixth  century.  Its 
father  was  an  abbot  named  Tual  or 
Tugdual.  When  Nomenoe,  in  the 
ninth  century,  wishing  to  establish 
a  Breton  nationality,  changed  all 
those  great  monasteries  in  the  north 
into  bishoprics,  Pabu-Tual,  or  the 
monastery  of  Saint  Tual,  was  one  of 
them.  In  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries,  Treguier  became 
an  ecclesiastic  centre  of  considerable 
importance,  and  the  common  resort 
of  the  local  gentry.  During  the  Rev- 
olution the  bishopric  was  suppressed  ; 
but  after  the  restoration  of  the  Cath- 
olic faith,  the  vast  edifices  owned  by 
the  city  again  made  it  an  ecclesias- 
tical centre,  a  city  of  convents  and 
religious  establishments.  There  was 
but  little    private   life.     The  streets. 


•    >//'/V      r  J     ■    //<'/"'//■      I'  rf///rr/r'f  /. 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  13 

save  one  or  two,  are  long  solitary 
passages,  made  by  high  convent  walls 
or  by  ancient  canonical  houses  sur- 
rounded by  gardens.  A  general  air 
of  distinction  pervades  the  place, 
and  gives  that  poor  dead  city  a 
charm  unknown  to  the  richer,  more 
active  towns  of  tradesmen,  that 
have  grown  up  in  other  parts  of  the 
country. 

The  cathedral  particularly,  a  very 
fine  sixteenth  century  structure,  with 
its  lofty  naves,  its  amazing  architec- 
tural liberties,  its  surprisingly  slender 
spire,  and  its  old  Romanesque  tower, 
a  relic  of  an  older  edifice,  seems 
expressly  formed  to  nourish  lofty 
thoughts.  At  night,  it  was  open  un- 
til a  very  late  hour  for  the  prayers 
of  pious  persons,  lighted  by  a  single 


14  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

lamp,  pervaded  by  that  moist  warm 
atmosphere  kept  up  in  antique  build- 
ings, the  vast  empty  interior  was  full 
of  the  infinite  and  of  vague  terrors. 
The  suburbs  of  the  city  are  rich 
in  beautiful  or  strange  legends. 
Some  quarter  of  a  mile  away  is  the 
chapel  built  near  the  birthplace  of 
the  good  councillor  Saint  Yves,  the 
Breton  saint  of  latter  days,  who  in 
popular  belief  has  become  the  de- 
fender of  the  feeble,  the  great  re- 
dresser  of  wrongs ;  close  by,  on  a 
very  high  point,  the  old  church  of 
St.  Michael,  destroyed  by  lightning. 
There  we  were  taken  every  year 
on  the  Thursday  before  Easter. 
There  is  a  theory  that  upon  that 
day  all  the  bells,  during  the  long 
period   of  silence  to  which  they  are 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  15 

condemned,  go  to  Rome  to  beg  the 
Pope's  blessing.  To  see  them  pass 
by,  we  climbed  a  ruin-crowned  hill ; 
we  shut  our  eyes  and  we  saw  them 
traverse  the  air,  bending  slightly  to- 
wards the  earth,  their  lace  robes  float- 
ing softly  behind  them,  —  the  same 
robes  which  they  wore  on  the  day 
of  their  christening.  A  little  farther 
on  rises  the  little  chapel  of  the  Five 
Wounds,  in  a  charming  valley ;  on 
the  other  side  of  the  river,  near  an 
ancient  holv  well,  is  Notre  Dame  du 
Tromeur,  a  spot  greatly  venerated 
by  pilgrims. 

My  sister's  strong  liking  for  domes- 
tic life  was  the  result  of  an  infancy 
spent  in  surroundings  thus  full  of 
poetry  and  sweet  melancholy.  A 
few  old  nuns,  driven  from  their  con- 


16  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

vent  by  the  Revolution  and  turned 
school-mistresses,  taught  her  to  read 
and  to  recite  the  Psalms  in  Latin.  She 
learned  by  heart  all  the  music  of 
the  Church ;  bringing  her  mind  to 
bear  later  upon  those  antique  words, 
which  she  compared  with  French 
and  Italian,  she  contrived  to  pick 
up  a  good  deal  of  Latin,  although 
she  never  studied  it  regularly.  Her 
education,  nevertheless,  would  neces- 
sarily have  remained  very  incom- 
plete, had  it  not  been  for  a  happy 
chance  which  gave  her  a  teacher  su- 
perior to  any  thitherto  possessed  by 
the  country.  The  noble  families  of 
Treguier  had  returned  from  exile 
completely  ruined.  A  young  girl  be- 
longing to  one  of  those  families, 
whose    education    was    acquired    in 


V 

i 


x 
I 

V 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  17 

England,  undertook  to  give  lessons. 
She  was  a  person  distinguished  alike 
for  her  taste  and  her  manners  ;  she 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  my 
sister,  and  left  behind  a  memory 
which  never  died. 

The  misfortunes  by  which  my  sis- 
ter was  early  surrounded  increased 
that  tendency  to  concentration  which 
was  inborn  with  her.  Our  paternal 
grandfather  belonged  to  a  sort  of 
clan  of  sailors  and  peasants  which 
peoples  the  entire  province  of  Goelo. 
He  made  a  small  fortune  by  his  boat, 
and  settled  at  Treguier.  Our  father 
served  in  the  fleet  of  the  Republic. 
After  the  naval  disasters  of  that  time, 
he  commanded  ships  on  his  own  ac- 
count, and  was  by  degrees  drawn  into 

a  considerable  business.     This  was  a 

2 


18  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

great  mistake.  Utterly  unskilled  in 
such  matters,  simple  and  incapable 
of  calculation,  continually  held  back 
by  that  timidity  which  makes  the 
sailor  a  complete  child  in  practical 
affairs,  he  saw  the  little  fortune  which 
lie  had  inherited  gradually  disappear 
in  an  abyss  whose  depth  he  could 
not  fathom.  The  events  of  1815 
brought  about  commercial  crises 
which  were  fatal  to  him.  His  weak 
and  sentimental  nature  could  not  re- 
sist these  trials ;  he  gradually  lost 
his  interest  in  life.  My  sister,  hour 
by  hour,  beheld  the  ravages  which 
anxiety  and  misfortune  made  in  that 
sweet  and  gentle  soul,  lost  in  an 
order  of  occupations  for  which  it  was 
not  fitted.  Amid  these  hard  experi- 
ences   she   gained   a   precocious  ma- 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  19 

turity.  From  the  age  of  twelve  she 
was  a  serious  personage,  burdened 
with  cares,  overwhelmed  with  grave 
thoughts    and    sombre   forebodings. 

On  his  return  from  one  of  his  Ion"" 
voyages  on  our  cold,  sad  seas,  my 
father  had  a  final  gleam  of  joy:  I 
was  born  in  February,  1823.  The 
arrival  of  this  little  brother  was  a 
great  comfort  to  my  sister.  She 
clung  to  me  with  all  the  strength  of 
a  timid,  tender  heart,  to  which  love 
is  a  necessity.  I  can  still  recall  the 
petty  tyrannies  which  I  exercised 
over  her,  and  against  which  she  never 
rebelled.  When  she  came  forth  be- 
decked to  go  to  gatherings  of  girls 
of  her  age,  I  hung  upon  her  skirts, 
and  implored  her  to  return ;  then  she 
would  turn  back,  take  off  her  holiday 


20  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

dress  and  stay  with  me.  One  day, 
in  jest,  she  threatened  me  that,  if  I 
were  not  good,  she  would  die ;  she 
even  feigned  to  be  dead,  reclining  in 
an  arm-chair.  The  horror  which 
my  dear  one's  silent  motionlessness 
caused  me  is  possibly  the  strongest 
impression  which  I  ever  received, 
fate  not  having  permitted  me  to  re- 
ceive her  last  sigh.  Beside  myself 
with  grief,  I  rushed  at  her,  and  gave 
her  arm  a  terrible  bite.  She  uttered 
a  cry  which  still  rings  in  my  ears. 
To  the  reproaches  lavished  upon  me, 
I  made  but  one  reply:  "Then  why 
did  you  die  ?  will  you  die  again  ?  " 
In  July,  1828,  our  father's  misfor- 
tunes ended  in  a  frightful  catastrophe. 
His  ship,  returning  from  Saint  Malo, 
entered  Treguier  harbor  without  him. 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  21 

The  crew  declared  that  they  had  not 
seen  him  for  several  days.  For  an 
entire  month  my  mother  sought  for 
him  in  unspeakable  agony.  At  last 
she  learned  that  a  body  had  been 
found  on  the  coast  at  Erqui,  a  vil- 
lage situated  between  Saint  Brieuc 
and  Cape  Frehel.  It  proved  to  be 
that  of  our  father.  What  was  the 
cause  of  his  death  ?  Was  he  surprised 
by  one  of  those  accidents  so  frequent 
in  the  life  of  a  seaman?  Did  he 
forget  himself  in  one  of  those  long 
dreams  of  the  infinite  which,  among 
Breton  races,  border  on  the  endless 
sleep  ?  Did  he  think  that  he  had 
earned  his  rest  1  Feeling  that  he  had 
struggled  long  enough,  did  he  take 
his  seat  upon  a  rock,  with  the  words, 
"  This  shall  be  the  stone  of  my  rest 


22  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

for  all  eternity,  here  I  will  take  my 
rest,  for  I  have  chosen  it "  ?  We 
never  knew.  He  was  laid  beneath 
the  sand,  where  the  waves  visit  him 
twice  every  day.  I  have  never  yet 
been  able  to  erect  a  stone  at  his  head 
to  tell  the  passer-by  what  I  owe  him. 
My  sister's  grief  was  deep.  She  in- 
herited her  disposition  from  our 
father.  She  loved  him  tenderly. 
Whenever  she  spoke  of  him,  it  was 
with  tears.  She  was  assured  that  his 
much  tried  soul  was  still  just  and 
pure  in  the  sight  of  God. 


II. 

From  this  time  on,  our  condition 
was  one  of  poverty.  My  brother, 
who  was  nineteen  years  old,  went  to 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  23 

Paris  and  at  once  began  that  life  of 
toil  and  steady  application  which 
was  never  to  meet  with  its  full  re- 
ward. We  left  Treguier,  where  it 
would  have  been  too  painful  for  us 
to  remain,  and  took  up  our  abode  at 
Lannion,  where  my  mother's  family 
lived.  My  sister  was  seventeen.  Her 
faith  was  still  strong,  and  the  thought 
of  embracing"  a  religious  life  had  more 
than  once  strongly  occupied  her  mind. 
On  winter  nights  she  took  me  to 
church  under  her  cloak ;  it  was  a 
great  pleasure  for  me  to  tramp  over 
the  snow,  thus  warmly  sheltered  from 
head  to  foot.  If  it  had  not  been 
for  me,  she  would  undoubtedly  have 
adopted  a  vocation  which,  consider- 
ing her  education,  her  pious  tastes, 
her  lack  of  fortune,  and  the  customs 


24  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

of  the  country,  seemed  to  be  exactly 
suited  to  her.  Her  wishes  turned 
especially  towards  the  convent  of 
Saint  Anne,  at  Lannion,  where  the 
care  of  sick  people  was  combined  with 
the  education  of  young  girls.  Alas  ! 
perhaps,  had  she  followed  out  this 
purpose,  it  would  have  been  better 
for  her  own  peace  of  mind.  Yet  she 
was  too  good  a  daughter  and  too  af- 
fectionate a  sister  to  prefer  her  own 
peace  to  her  duty,  even  when  religious 
prejudices  in  which  she  still  shared 
upheld  her.  Thenceforth,  she  re- 
garded herself  as  responsible  for  my 
future.  On  one  occasion,  I  being 
clumsy  and  awkward  in  my  move- 
ments, she  saw  that  I  was  timidly 
trying  to  disguise  a  hole  in  a  worn- 
out   garment.     She    wept;    the  sight 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  25 

of  that  poor  child  destined  to  suffer- 
ing, with  other  instincts,  wrung  her 
heart.  She  resolved  to  accept  the 
struggle  of  life,  and  single-handed 
took  up  the  task  of  filling  the  yawn- 
ing gulf  which  our  father's  ill  fortune 
had  dug  at  our  feet. 

The  manual  labor  of  one  poor  girl 
was  wholly  unequal  to  the  work. 
The  career  which  she  embraced  was 
the  most  cruel  of  all.  It  was  decided 
that  we  should  return  to  Treguier? 
and  that  she  should  assume  the 
office  of  a  teacher.  Of  all  posi- 
tions which  a  well  educated  person 
without  money  can  possibly  choose, 
the  education  of  women  in  a  small 
provincial  town  is  undeniably  that 
which  demands  most  courage.  This 
was    the    period    immediately    after 


26  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 


the  Revolution  of  1830.  In  those 
remote  provinces  it  was  a  critical 
and  trying"  moment.  The  nobility 
during  the  Restoration,  seeing  that 
their  privileges  were  not  contested, 
had  frankly  taken  part  in  the  univer- 
sal change.  Now,  feeling  themselves 
humiliated,  they  took  their  revenge 
by  withdrawing  into  a  narrow  circle 
and  impeding  the  general  growth. 
The  Legitimist  families  refused  to  trust 
their  children  to  any  but  religious 
communities;  middle  class  families, 
folio wiiisr  the  fashion  and  imitatinff 
people  of  quality,  soon  adopted  the 
same  custom.  Incapable  of  stooping 
to  those  methods  of  vulgar  clever- 
ness without  which  it  is  almost  im- 
possible for  a  private  educational 
establishment  to  succeed,   my  sister, 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  27 

with  her  rare  distinction,  her  deep 
earnestness,  her  solid  instruction,  saw 
her  poor  little  school  deserted.  Her 
modesty,  her  reserve,  the  exquisite 
taste  she  showed  in  everything-,  were 
so  many  reasons  for  failure  here. 
At  odds  with  mean  susceptibilities, 
obliged  to  contend  against  the  most 
fool i si  1  pretensions,  that  great  and 
noble  soul  wore  itself  away  in  an 
endless  struggle  with  a  degenerate 
society,  which  the  Revolution  had 
deprived  of  the  best  elements  that 
it  formerly  possessed  without  confer- 
ring upon  it  any  of  its  benefits. 

Some  few  persons  superior  to  pro- 
vincial pettinesses  appreciated  her. 
One  very  intelligent  man,  free  from 
the  prejudices  which  reign  unop- 
posed in  provincial   towns   since  the 


28  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

aristocracy  have  disappeared  or  have 
been  debased  and  stupefied  by  reac- 
tion, conceived  a  very  strong  feeling 
for  her.  My  sister,  in  spite  of  a  birth- 
mark to  which  it  took  some  time  to 

become  accustomed,  had  at  this  age 
much  charm.     Those  who  only  knew 

her  in  later  years,  when  worn  by  a 
severe  climate,  cannot  imagine  how 
delicate  and  languorous  her  features 
then  were.  Her  eyes  were  wonder- 
fully soft,  her  hand  was  the  most 
exquisite  and  graceful  conceivable. 
Propositions  were  made ;  conditions 
were  discreetly  hinted.  The  effect 
of  these  conditions  would  have  been 
to  part  her,  to  some  extent,  from 
her  family,  for  whom  it  was  thought 
she  had  labored  long  enough.  She 
refused,   although   the   jDrecision  and 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  29 

balance  of  her  mind  inspired  her 
with  a  genuine  liking  for  those  sim- 
ilar qualities  which  she  saw  in  him. 
She  preferred  poverty  to  wealth  un- 
shared with  her  familv.  However, 
her  situation  became  more  and  more 
painful.  The  money  due  her  was  so 
irregularly  paid  that  at  times  we  re- 
gretted having  left  Lannion,  where 
we  found  greater  devotion  and  sym- 
pathy. 

She  then  determined  to  drain  the  bit- 
ter cup  to  its  dregs  (1835).  A  friend  of 
our  family,  who  about  this  time  visited 
Paris,  mentioned  to  her  a  position  as 
under  teacher  in  a  small  school  for 
girls.  The  poor  creature  accepted. 
She  set  forth  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
four,  without  a  protector  or  an  ad- 
viser, for  a  world  of  which  she  knew 


30  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

absolutely  nothing',  and  where  a  cruel 
apprenticeship  awaited  her. 

Her  early  days  in  Paris  were  horri- 
ble. That  world  of  coldness,  rigidity, 
and  charlatanism,  that  desert  where 
she  had  not  a  single  friend,  drove  her 
to  despair.  The  intense  love  which 
we  Bretons  feel  for  our  native  land, 
our  customs,  and  our  family  life, 
awoke  in  her  with  the  sharpest  keen- 
ness. Lost  in  an  ocean  where  her 
modesty  caused  her  to  be  overlooked, 
prevented  by  her  extreme  reserve 
from  forming  those  friendly  relations 
which  console  and  sustain  when  they 
are  of  no  other  aid,  she  became  a  prey 
to  a  profound  homesickness  which 
affected  her  seriously.  The  most 
cruel  thing  to  a  Breton  when  first 
transplanted  is  the  feeling  that  he  is 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  31 

forsaken  by  God  as  well  as  by  men. 
His  sky  is  overcast.  His  gentle  faith 
in  the  universal  morality  of  the 
world,  his  calm  optimism,  are  shaken. 
He  believes  himself  cast  out  of  para- 
dise into  an  inferno  of  icy  indiffer- 
ence ;  the  voice  of  beauty  and  goodness 
seems  to  him  dead  and  lifeless ;  he 
is  ready  to  exclaim,  "  How  can  I 
sing  praises  unto  the  Lord  in  a 
strange  land  ! ''  To  fill  up  the  meas- 
ure of  her  misery,  the  first  bouses 
into  which  her  fate  led  her  were 
not  worthy  of  her.  Fancy  a  tender 
maiden,  who  never  before  left  her 
pious  little  village,  her  mother,  and 
her  friends,  suddenly  flung  into  one 
of  those  frivolous  boarding  schools 
where  her  serious  ideas  are  wounded 
at  every  turn,  where  she  finds  in  her 


32  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 


superiors  nothing  but  worldliness, 
indifference,  and  sordid  selfishness. 
This  early  experience  led  her  to  be 
very  severe  in  her  criticism  of  Paris- 
ian schools  for  girls.  Twenty  times 
she  made  up  her  mind  to  leave;  it 
took  all  her  indomitable  courage  to 
detain  her  there. 

Little  by  little,  however,  she  was 
appreciated.  She  was  put  in  charge 
of  a  school,  a  very  respectable  one 
this  time ;  but  the  obstacles  which 
she  met  in  trying  to  carry  out  her 
views  amidst  the  petty  miseries  in- 
separable from  private  institutions, 
always  kept  up  by  their  proprietors 
for  the  sake  of  trifling  advantages, 
prevented  her  from  ever  finding  much 
pleasure  in  this  form  of  teaching. 
She    worked    sixteen    hours    a    day. 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  33 


She  accepted  all  the  open  trials  de- 
manded by  the  regulations.  This 
labor  did  not  have  upon  her  the 
effect  which  it  would  have  had  upon 
a  commonplace  nature.  Instead  of 
crushing,  it  strengthened  her,  and 
greatly  developed  her  ideas.  Her 
education,  already  very  broad,  be- 
came exceptional.  She  studied  the 
works  of  the  modern  school  of  his- 
tory, and,  later  on,  but  a  few  words 
from  me  were  required  to  give  her 
the  most  acute  critical  perception. 
So,  too,  her  religious  ideas  became 
modified.  Historv  showed  her  the 
insufficiency  of  any  special  dogma ; 
but  the  religious  basis  existing  in 
her  by  the  gift  of  nature  and  by  the 
act  of  early  education  was  too  solid 
to  be  shaken.    All  this  growth,  which 

3 


34  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

might  have  been  dangerous  in  an- 
other woman,  was  harmless  here ; 
for  she  kept  it  for  herself  alone. 
Intellectual  culture  in  her  eyes  pos- 
sessed an  intrinsic  and  absolute  value  ; 
she  never  dreamed  of  deriving  from 
it  any  satisfaction  for  vanity. 

In  1838  she  summoned  me  to 
Paris.  Educated  at  Treguier  by 
worthy  priests  who  there  conducted 
a  sort  of  small  seminary,  I  early 
showed  aptitudes  for  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal condition.  The  triumphs  which 
I  won  at  school  enchanted  my  sister, 
who  mentioned  them  to  a  good  and 
distinguished  man,  the  doctor  of  the 
school  where  she  taught,  and  a  very 
zealous  Catholic,  Dr.  Descuret,  author 
of  the  "  Medicine  of  the  Passions." 
Descuret  spoke  to  Monseigneur  Du- 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  35 

panloup,  who  at  that  time  managed 
the  little  seminary  of  Saint  Nicho- 
las du  Chardonnet  in  such  brilliant 
fashion,  concerning-  the  possible  ac- 
quisition of  an  apt  pupil,  and  came 
back  telling  my  sister  that  a  scholar- 
ship in  the  little  seminary  was  at 
my  disposal.  I  was  then  fifteen 
and  a  half.  My  sister,  whose  Catho- 
lic beliefs  were  beginning  to  waver, 
viewed  with  some  regret  the  wholly 
clerical  bent  of  my  education.  But 
she  knew  the  respect  which  a  child's 
faith  deserves.  She  never  said  a 
word  to  turn  me  from  the  course 
which  I  followed  with  perfect  spon- 
taneity. She  came  to  see  me  every 
week ;  she  still  wore  the  simple  green 
woollen  shawl  which  had  sheltered 
her  proud  poverty  in  Brittany.      She 


36  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

was  the  same  loving,  gentle  maiden, 
but  with  an  added  firmness  and  good- 
ness given  her  by  the  trials  of  life 
and  her  hard  study. 

The  teacher's  career  is  so  ungrate- 
ful a  one  for  women,  that  at  the  end 
of  five  years  spent  in  Paris,  after 
several  attacks  of  illness  caused  by 
overwork,  my  sister  was  still  far 
from  able  to  provide  for  the  bur- 
dens which  she  had  assumed.  True, 
she  understood  them  after  a  fashion 
which  would  have  discouraged  any 
one  but  herself.  Our  father  had 
left  liabilities  which  far  exceeded  the 
value  of  our  paternal  mansion,  the 
only  property  left  to  us.  But  our 
mother  was  so  beloved,  and  all  things 
in  that  kindly  land  were  still  treated 
after  so  patriarchal  a  fashion,  that  no 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  37 

creditor  had  ever  dreamed  of  urging 
a  settlement.  It  was  agreed  that  my 
mother  should  keep  the  house,  pay- 
ing what  she  could  and  when  she 
could.  My  sister  would  not  hear  of 
rest  until  all  this  heavy  burden  of 
debt  was  lifted. 

It  was  thus  that  she  was  led  to 
listen  to  offers  made  to  her  in  1840  to 
become  a  private  governess  in  Poland. 
She  would  have  to  leave  her  native 
land  for  }rears,  and  to  accept  the 
closest  servitude.  But  she  had  made 
a  much  greater  effort  when  she  left 
Brittany  and  launched  out  upon  the 
vast  world.  She  set  forth  in  Janu- 
ary, 1841,  traversed  the  Black  Forest 
and  all  Southern  Germany,  hidden  by 
snow,  joined  at  Vienna  the  family  to 
which  she  had  engaged  herself,  then, 


38  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

crossing  the  Carpathians,  reached  the 
castle  of  Clemensow,  on  the  shores  of 
the  Bug,  a  gloomy  abode,  where  for 
ten  long  years  she  was  to  know  how 
bitter  exile  is,  even  when  one  has  a 
noble  motive  for  enduring  it. 

But  now  fate  had  in  store  for  her 
at  least  one  compensation  for  many 
injustices,  placing  her  in  a  family 
to  which  I  may  well  refer,  since 
to  its  historic  lustre  it  lias  lately 
added  a  contemporary  glory  which 
has  brought  its  name  to  every  mouth  ; 
it  was  the  family  of  Count  Andre 
Zamoyski.  The  love  with  which  she 
performed  her  tasks,  the  affection 
which  she  soon  felt  for  her  three 
pupils,  the  joy  of  seeing  her  efforts 
bear  fruit,  —  especially  in  one  who 
from  her  youth  was  destined  to  follow 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  39 

her  teachings  longest,  Princess  Cecile 

Lubormirska,  —  the  rare  esteem  which 
she  won  from  all  of  that  noble  family, 
who  after  her  return  to  France  never 
ceased  to  appeal  to  her  advice  and 
her  judgment,  —  the  affinity  of  ear- 
nestness and  uprightness  which  existed 
between  her  character  and  that  of  the 
home  in  which  she  lived,  —  caused 
her  to  forget  both  the  sadness  insep- 
arable from  her  position  and  the 
rigors  of  a  climate  wholly  unsuited 
to  her  temperament.  She  became  at- 
tached to  Poland,  and  learned,  above 
all,  to  hold  in  high  esteem  the  Polish 
peasant,  whom  she  regarded  as  a  good 
creature,  full  of  high  religious  in- 
stincts, reminding  her  of  the  Breton 
peasant,  but  with  less  energy. 

The  journeys  which   she   made  in 


40  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

Germany  and  Italy  completed  the 
work  of  maturing  her  ideas.  She 
lived  at  various  intervals  in  Warsaw, 
Vienna,  and  Dresden.  Venice  and 
Florence  enchanted  her.  But  it  was 
Rome  above  all  other  cities  that  won 
her  love.  This  city,  full  of  profound 
inspiration  as  it  is,  led  her  to  view 
with  much  serenity  the  separation 
which  every  philosophic  mind  is 
forced  to  make  between  the  basis 
of  religion  and  its  individual  forms. 
She  loved,  with  Lord  Byron,  to  call  it 
"  dear  city  of  the  soul."  Like  all 
strangers  who  have  lived  there,  she 
even  became  indulgent  of  all  the  silly 
and  childish  details  which  the  mod- 
ern institution  of  the  Papacy  entails. 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  41 


III. 

I  left  Saint  Sulpice  seminary  in 
1845.  Thanks  to  the  liberal  and 
earnest  spirit  which  ruled  over  that 
institution,  I  had  carried  my  philo- 
logic  studies  very  far ;  my  religious 
opinions  were  greatly  shaken  thereby. 
Here  again  Henrietta  was  my  sup- 
port. She  had  outstripped  me  in  this 
path ;  her  Catholic  beliefs  had  wholly 
disappeared ;  but  she  had  always  re- 
frained from  exerting  any  influence 
over  me  upon  this  subject.  When  I 
told  her  of  the  doubts  which  tor- 
mented me,  and  which  made  it  my 
duty  to  abandon  a  career  for  which 
absolute  faith  was  requisite,  she  was 
enchanted,  and  offered  to  smooth  the 


42  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

difficult  passage.  I  entered  upon  life, 
scarce  twenty-three  years  of  age,  old 
in  thought,  but  as  great  a  novice,  as 
ignorant  of  the  world,  as  any  one 
could  possibly  be.  I  knew  literally 
no  one ;  I  lacked  the  most  ordinary 
advantages  of  a  youth  of  fifteen.  I 
was  not  even  Bachelor  of  Arts.  It 
was  agreed  that  I  should  search  the 
boarding  schools  of  Paris  for  some 
position  which  would  square  me,  as 
the  slang  phrase  is,  —  that  is,  would 
give  me  board  and  lodging  without 
salary,  at  the  same  time  leaving  me 
abundant  time  for  independent  study. 
Twelve  hundred  francs,  which  she 
gave  me,  enabled  me  to  wait,  and  to 
supplement  all  the  deficiencies  which 
such  a  position  might  entail.  Those 
twelve  hundred  francs  were  the  corner 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  4 


o 


stone  of  m)r  life.  I  never  exhausted 
them  ;  but  they  gave  me  the  requisite 
tranquillity  of  mind  to  think  at  my 
ease,  and  made  it  unnecessary  for 
me  to  overburden  myself  with  tasks 
which  would  have  crushed  me.  Her 
exquisite  letters  were  my  consolation 
and  my  support  at  this  turning  point 
in  my  life. 

While  I  struggled  with  difficulties 
increased  by  my  entire  lack  of  ex- 
perience of  the  world,  her  health  suf- 
fered serious  inroads  in  consequence 
of  the  severity  of  the  winters  in 
Poland.  She  developed  a  chronic 
affection  of  the  larynx,  which  in  1850 
became  so  serious  that  it  was  thought 
necessary  for  her  to  return.  More- 
over,  her  task  was  accomplished,  our 
father's   debts   were    paid,   the   small 


44  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 


properties  which  he  had  left  to  us 
were  now  free  from  encumbrance, 
in  the  hands  of  our  mother ;  my 
brother  had  won  by  his  labor  a  posi- 
tion which  promised  to  make  him 
rich.  We  decided  to  unite  our  for- 
tunes. In  September,  1850,  I  joined 
her  in  Berlin.  Those  ten  years  of 
exile  had  utterly  transformed  her. 
The  wrinkles  of  old  age  were  prema- 
turely printed  on  her  brow ;  of  the 
charm  which  she  still  possessed  when 
she  took  leave  of  me  in  the  parlor  of 
the  Saint  Nicholas  seminary,  nothing 
now  remained  but  the  delicious  ex- 
pression of  her  ineffable  goodness. 

Then  began  for  us  those  delightful 
years,  the  mere  memory  of  which 
brings  tears  to  my  eyes.  We  took 
a  small  apartment  in  a  garden  near 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  45 

Val-de- Grace.  Our  solitude  was  ab- 
solute. She  had  no  friends  and  made 
little  effort  to  acquire  any.  Our 
windows  looked  out  upon  the  garden 
of  the  Carmelites  in  the  Rue  d'Enfer. 
The  life  of  those  recluses,  during  the 
long  hours  which  I  spent  at  the 
library,  in  some  sort  regulated  her 
existence  and  afforded  her  only  source 
of  amusement.  Her  respect  for  my 
work  was  extreme.  I  have  seen  her 
in  the  evening  sit  for  hours  beside 
me,  scarcely  breathing  for  fear  of 
interrupting  me  ;  yet  she  could  not 
bear  to  have  me  out  of  her  sight, 
and  the  door  between  our  two  bed- 
rooms was  always  open.  Her  love 
was  so  discreet  and  so  secure  that 
the  secret  communion  of  our  thoughts 
was  enough  for  her.      She  naturally 


46  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

so  exacting,  so  jealous  in  her  affec- 
tions, was  content  with  a  few  minutes 
out  of  the  day  provided  she  was  sure 
that  she  alone  was  loved.  By  her 
rigid  economy,  she  provided  for  me, 
with  singularly  limited  resources,  a 
home  where  nothing  was  ever  lack- 
ing, na}^,  which  had  its  austere  charm. 
Our  thoughts  were  so  perfectly  in 
accord  that  we  hardly  needed  to  im- 
part them  each  to  the  other.  Our  gen- 
eral opinions  as  to  the  world  and  God 
were  identical.  There  was  no  shade 
of  distinction,  however  delicate,  in 
the  theories  which  I  revolved  at  that 
period  that  she  did  not  understand. 
Upon  many  points  of  modern  history, 
which  she  had  studied  at  the  fountain 
head,  she  outstripped  me.  The  gen- 
eral purpose  of  my  career,  the  plan  of 


MY    SISTEE   HENRIETTA.  47 

unwavering-  sincerity  which  I  formed, 
was  so  thoroughly  the  combined  pro- 
duct of  our  two  consciences  that,  had 
I  been  tempted  to  depart  from  it,  she 
would  have  stood  beside  me,  like  an- 
other self,  to  recall  me  to  my  duty. 

Her  share  in  the  direction  of  my 
ideas  was  thus  a  very  large  one. 
She  was  a  matchless  secretary  to 
me ;  she  copied  all  my  works,  and 
grasped  them  so  fully  that  I  could 
depend  upon  her  as  upon  a  living 
index  of  my  own  thought.  I  am  in- 
finitely indebted  to  her  in  the  matter 
of  literary  style.  She  read  the  proofs 
of  everything  I  wrote,  and  her  acute 
criticism,  with  infinite  keenness,  discov- 
ered errors  which  I  had  not  observed. 
She  had  acquired  an  excellent  mode 
of  writing,  wholly  taken  from  antique 


48  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

sources,  and  so  pure,  so  precise,  that 
I  think  no  one  since  the  days  of  Port 
Royal  ever  set  up  an  ideal  of  diction 
more  perfectly  correct.  This  made 
her  very  severe ;  she  accepted  very 
few  modern  writers,  and  when  she 
saw  the  essays  which  I  wrote  before 
our  reunion,  and  which  I  had  not 
been  able  to  send  to  her  in  Poland, 
she  was  only  half  satisfied  with  them. 
She  agreed  with  their  tendency,  and 
in  any  event  she  thought  that  in 
this  order  of  intimate  and  individual 
thought,  expressed  with  moderation, 
every  one  should  give  utterance  witli 
entire  freedom  to  that  which  is  in 
him.  But  the  form  struck  her  as 
careless  and  abrupt ;  she  discovered 
exaggerated  touches,  a  hard  tone,  a 
disrespectful    way    of    treating    Ian- 


MT    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  49 

guage.  She  convinced  me  that  one 
may  say  anything  and  everything 
in  the  simple,  correct  style  of  good 
authors,  and  that  new  expressions  or 
violent  images  always  proceed  either 
from  improper  affectation  or  from 
ignorance  of  our  genuine  riches. 
Hence,  a  great  change  in  my  mode 
of  writing  dates  from  my  reunion 
with  her.  I  acquired  the  habit  of  com- 
posing with  a  view  to  her  remarks, 
risking  many  touches  to  see  what 
effect  they  would  produce  on  her, 
and  determined  to  sacrifice  them  if 
she  asked  me  to  do  so.  This  mental 
process,  when  she  ceased  to  live,  be- 
came to  me  like  the  painful  feeling 
of  one  who  has  been  amputated, 
who  continually  acts  with  a  view  to 
the  lost  limb.     She  was  an  organ  of 


50  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

my  intellectual  life,  and  a  portion  of 
my  own  being1  truly  entered  the  tomb 
with  her. 

In  all  moral  matters  we  had  come 
to  see  with  the  same  eyes,  and  to 
feel  with  the  same  heart.  She  was 
so  thoroughly  familiar  with  my  order 
of  thought  that  she  almost  always 
knew  beforehand  what  I  was  about 
to  say,  the  idea  dawning  upon  her 
and  upon  me  at  the  same  moment. 
But,  in  one  sense,  she  was  greatly  my 
superior.  In  spiritual  things  I  was 
still  seeking  material  for  interesting 
essays  or  artistic  studies ;  with  her 
nothing  marred  the  pnrity  of  her 
intimate  communion  with  the  good. 
Her  religion  of  the  true  could  not 
endure  the  least  discordant  note. 
One  thing  that  wounded  her  in  my 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  51 

writings  was  a  touch  of  irony  which 
possessed  me,  and  which  I  mingled 
with  the  best  tilings.  I  had  never 
suffered,  and  I  found  a  certain  philos- 
ophy in  the  discreet  smile  provoked 
by  human  weakness  or  vanity.  This 
trick  wounded  her,  and  I  gradually 
gave  it  up  for  her  sake.  I  now  know 
how  right  she  was.  The  good  should 
be  simply  good ;  any  touch  of  mock- 
ery implies  a  remnant  of  vanity  and 
of  personal  challenge  which  ends  by 
being  in  bad  taste. 

Her  religion  had  attained  to  the 
last  degree  of  purification.  She  ab- 
solutely rejected  the  supernatural ; 
but  she  retained  a  strong  attachment 
to  Christianity.  It  was  not  precisely 
Protestantism,  even  that  of  the  broad- 
est description,  which  pleased  her.    She 


52  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

preserved  a  charming-  recollection  of 
Catholicism,  of  its  music,  its  Psalms, 
of  the  pious  practices  with  which  she 
had  been  lulled  in  childhood.  She 
was  a  saint,  without  the  rigid  faith  in 
symbols  and  the  narrow  observances. 
About  a  month  before  her  death  we 
had  a  religious  conversation  with 
good  Dr.  Gaillardot  on  the  terrace 
before  our  house  at  Ghazir.  She 
held  me  back  from  the  abyss  of  for- 
mulas in  regard  to  an  unconscious 
Deity  and  a  purely  ideal  immortality 
into  which  I  allowed  mvself  to  be 
drawn.  Without  being  a  Deist  in  the 
vulvar  sense,  she  did  not  wish  reli- 
gion  to  be  reduced  to  a  pure  abstrac- 
tion. In  practice,  at  least,  everything 
was  clear  to  her.  "Yes,"  she  said  to 
us,  "  at  my  last  hour  I  shall  have  the 


r 

vs 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  53 

comfort  of  thinking  that  I  have  done  as 
much  good  as  possible  ;  if  there  be  any- 
thing which  is  not  vanity,  it  is  that." 
An  exquisite  feeling  for  nature  was 
the  source  of  her  keenest  enjo}Tments. 
A  fine  day,  a  sunbeam,  a  flower,  were 
enough  to  fill  her  with  rapture.  She 
thoroughly  understood  the  delicate  art 
of  the  great  idealist  schools  of  Italy  ; 
but  she  could  take  no  pleasure  in  the 
brutal  or  violent  art  whose  object  is 
anything  but  beauty.  Special  cir- 
cumstances gave  her  a  rare  knowl- 
edge of  the  history  of  the  art  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  She  collected  for  me 
all  the  notes  for  the  address  on  the 
condition  of  the  fine  arts  in  the  four- 
teenth century,  which  is  to  form  a 
part  of  Volume  XXIV.  of  the  "  Liter- 
ary History  of  France."     To  do  this, 


54  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

she  examined  with  admirable  patience 
and  exactitude  all  the  great  archaeo- 
logical collections  published  within 
half  a  century,  extracting  everything 
which  bore  upon  our  subject.  Her 
opinions,  which  she  set  down  at  the 
same  time,  were  strikingly  correct, 
and  I  seldom  failed  to  adopt  them. 
To  complete  our  researches,  we  took 
a  journey  together  to  the  land  where 
Gothic  art  grew  up,  —  to  Vexin,  Valois, 
Beauvais,  the  region  of  Noyon,  Laon, 
and  Rheims.  In  these  researches, 
which  interested  her,  she  displayed  an 
amazing  activity.  Her  ideal  was  an 
obscure,  industrious  life,  surrounded 
by  affections.  She  often  repeated  the 
phrase  of  Thomas  a  Kempis,  In  an- 
gello,    cum   libello}      She    spent    very 

1  In  a  little  nook,  with  a  little  book. 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  55 

happy  hours  in  these  quiet  occupa- 
tions. Her  mind  was  then  completely 
at  peace,  and  her  heart,  usually  full 
of  alarm,  entered  into  full  rest. 

Her  capacity  for  work  was  extraor- 
dinary. I  have  seen  her,  for  days  at 
a  time,  devote  herself  unceasingly 
to  the  task  which  she  had  taken  up. 
She  took  part  in  editing-  educational 
journals,  especially  the  one  in  charge 
of  her  friend,  Mile.  Ulliac-Tremadeure. 
She  never  signed  her  name,  and  it  was 
impossible,  with  her  great  modesty, 
that  she  could  ever  win,  in  this  line, 
more  than  the  esteem  of  a  select  few. 
Moreover,  the  detestable  taste  which 
in  France  presides  over  the  com- 
position of  works  meant  for  the  edu- 
cation of  women  left  her  no  room  to 
hope  either  for  great  satisfaction  or 


56  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

great  success.  It  was  particularly  to 
oblige  her  friend,  who  was  old  and 
infirm,  that  she  undertook  this  labor. 
The  writings  wherein  she  may  be 
found  entire  are  her  letters.  She  wrote 
them  to  perfection.  Her  notes  of 
travel  were  also  excellent.  I  trusted 
to  her  to  tell  the  unscientific  part  of 
our  journey  to  the  East.  Alas  !  all 
knowledge  of  this  side  of  mv  enter- 
prise,  which  I  left  to  her,  perished 
with  her.  What  I  found  on  this  head 
in  her  papers  is  very  good.  We  hope 
to  be  able  to  publish  it,  completing  it 
by  her  letters.  We  shall  then  publish 
a  story  which  she  wrote  of  the  great 
maritime  expeditions  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries.  She  made 
very  extensive  researches  for  this  task, 
and  she  brought  to  bear  on  it  a  critical 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  57 

judgment  very  rare  in  works  intended 
for  children.  She  did  nothing  by 
halves;  the  rectitude  of  her  judgment 
was  shown  in  everything  by  an  ex- 
quisite taste  for  solidity  and  truth. 

She  had  not  what  is  called  wit,  if 
by  that  word  we  understand  some- 
thing airy  and  sly,  as  is  the  French 
fashion.  She  never  made  a  mock  of 
anybody.  Malice  was  odious  to  her  ; 
she  regarded  it  as  a  species  of  cru- 
elty. I  remember  that  at  a  Pardon 
(pilgrimage)  in  Lower  Brittany,  to 
which  we  went  in  boats,  our  bark 
wras  preceded  by  another  containing 
certain  poor  ladies,  who,  wishing  to 
make  themselves  beautiful  for  the 
festival,  had  hit  upon  pitiful  arrange- 
ments of  their  attire,  which  was  in 
very  bad  taste.     The  people  in  whose 


58  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 


company  we  were,  laughed  at  them, 
and  the  poor  ladies  observed  this.  My 
sister  burst  into  tears  :  it  seemed  to 
her  barbarous  to  jest  at  well  meaning- 
persons  who  had  for  a  time  forgotten 
their  misfortunes  to  be  cheerful,  and 
who  had  perhaps  submitted  to  great 
privations  out  of  deference  to  the 
world.  In  her  eyes,  a  ridiculous 
person  was  to  be  pitied ;  she  at  once 
loved  him  and  took  his  part  against 
those  who  scoffed  at  him. 

Hence  her  aversion  to  the  world  and 
the  poor  show  which  she  made  in  ordi- 
nary conversation,  —  almost  alwaj^s  a 
tissue  of  malice  and  frivolity.  She  was 
prematurely  old,  and  she  generally 
added  still  more  to  her  age  by  her  dress 
and  manners.  She  was  a  worship- 
per of  misfortune  ;  she  hailed,  almost 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  59 

cultivated,  every  excuse  for  tears. 
Sorrow  became  to  her  a  familiar  and 
agreeable  feeling.  Ordinary  people 
did  not,  in  general,  understand  her, 
and  considered  her  somewhat  stiff 
and  embarrassed.  Nothing  which 
was  not  completely  good  could  please 
her.  Everything  about  her  was  true 
and  profound  ;  she  could  not  dishonor 
herself.  The  lower  classes,  peasants, 
on  the  contrary,  regarded  her  as  ex- 
quisitely kind,  and  those  who  knew 
how  to  take  her  on  the  right  side 
soon  learned  to  recognize  the  depth  of 
her  nature  and  her  real  distinction. 

She  sometimes  betrayed  delightful 
feminine  touches ;  she  became  a 
young  girl  again  ;  she  clung  to  life 
almost  with  a  smile,  and  the  veil  be- 
tween  her  and    the   world  seemed  to 


60  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

fall.  These  fleeting  moments  of 
delicious  weakness,  transient  gleams 
of  a  vanished  dawn,  were  full  of  mel- 
ancholy sweetness.  In  this  she  was 
superior  to  persons  who  profess,  in 
their  gloomy  abstraction,  the  detach- 
ment preached  by  the  mystics.  She 
Joved  life ;  she  found  a  relish  in  it ; 
she  could  smile  at  an  ornament,  at  a 
feminine  trifle,  as  we  might  smile  at  a 
flower.  She  did  not  say  to  Nature 
that  frenzied  Abrenuntio  (I  renounce 
thee)  of  Christian  ascetism.  Virtue 
to  her  was  no  stern  rigor,  no  studied 
effort ;  it  was  the  natural  instinct  of  a 
beautiful  soul  aiming  at  goodness  by 
a  spontaneous  exertion,  serving  God 
without  fear  or  tremor. 

Thus  for  six  years  we  lived  a  very 
lofty   and   a    very    pure    life.      My 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  61 

position  was  still  very  modest ;  but  it 
was  she  herself  who  so  willed  it. 
She  would  not  have  allowed  me,  even 
had  I  had  such  a  thought,  to  sacrifice 
the  least  part  of  my  independence  to 
my  advancement.  The  misfortunes 
which  unexpectedly  overtook  my 
brother,  and  led  to  the  loss  of  all  our 
savings,  did  not  disturb  her.  She 
would  have  gone  abroad  again,  had  it 
been  necessary  for  the  steady  pro- 
gress of  my  life.  My  God !  did  I 
do  all  that  lay  in  my  power  to  make 
her  happy  ?  How  bitterly  I  reproach 
myself  now  for  not  being  sufficiently 
open  and  affectionate  with  her,  for  not 
telling  her  oftener  how  much  I  loved 
her,  for  yielding  too  much  to  my  taste 
for  silent  concentration,  for  not  tak- 
ing the   utmost   advantage   of  every 


62  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

hour  that  was  left  me !  O  could  I 
recover  but  a  single  one  of  those 
moments  which  I  did  not  spend  in 
making  her  happy !  But  I  take  her 
elect  soul  to  witness  that  she  was 
always  at  the  core  of  my  heart,  that 
she  ruled  my  entire  moral  life  as  it 
was  never  given "  to  any  one  to  rule, 
that  she  was  always  the  primary  cause 
of  my  sorrows  and  my  joys.  If  I 
sinned  against  her,  it  was  due  to  a 
stiffness  of  manner  which  those  who 
know  me  should  not  heed,  and  from 
an  awkward  feeling  of  respect  which 
made  me  avoid  with  her  every  tiling 
which  might  seem  a  profanation  of 
her  sanctity.  She  herself  was  re- 
strained by  a  similar  feeling  in  regard 
to  me.  My  long  clerical  education, 
for  four  years  absolutely  solitary,  left 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  63 

an  impress  on  my  disposition  in  this 
regard  which  her  delicate  reserve 
prevented  her  from  combating  as 
much  as  she  might. 


IV. 

My  lack  of  experience  of  life,  and 
above  all  my  ignorance  of  the  deep 
differences  which  exist  between  the 
heart  of  a  man  and  that  of  a  wo- 
man, led  me  to  require  of  her  a  sacri- 
fice which  would  have  been  beyond 
the  strength  of  any  but  her.  My 
sense  of  the  duty  which  I  owed  to 
such  a  friend  was  too  profound  to 
allow  me  to  dream  of  changing  any- 
thing in  our  condition  without  her 
permission.  But  it  was  she  herself 
who,    with  her  accustomed   nobility, 


64  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

made  the  first  advances.  From  the 
earliest  days  of  our  reunion,  she  had 
urged  me  to  many.  She  often  re- 
turned to  the  charge.  She  even 
talked,  without  my  knowledge,  with 
one  of  our  friends,  of  a  match  which 
she  had  planned  for  me,  but  which 
was  never  carried  out.  The  intro- 
ductory step  which  she  took  in  this 
matter  led  me  to  make  a  great  mis- 
take. I  sincerely  believed  that  she 
would  not  feel  hurt  whenever  I  should 
tell  her  that  I  had  found  a  person  of 
my  choice  worthy  to  be  associated 
with  her.  When  I  allowed  her  to 
talk  to  me  of  marriage,  I  had  never 
understood  that  she  was  to  leave  me. 
I  had  always  supposed  that  she  would 
still  be  to  me  what  she  had  been  thus 
far,    the   accomplished   and   well  be- 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  65 

loved  sister,  incapable  of  taking  or  of 
giving  offence,  too  wholly  sure  of  the 
love  with  which  she  inspired  me  to  be 
wounded  by  that  which  another  might 
win.  I  now  see  the  error  of  such  a 
conception.  A  woman's  love  is  unlike 
that  of  a  man ;  all  affection  with  her 
is  exclusive  and  jealous ;  she  does 
not  admit  any  diversity  of  nature  be- 
tween the  different  loves.  But  I  was 
excusable ;  I  was  deceived  by  my 
extreme  simplicity  of  heart,  and  also 
to  some  degree  by  her.  To  speak 
truly,  was  she  not  herself  mistaken  in 
regard  to  her  courage  ?  I  think  so. 
When  the  marriage  which  she  had 
planned  for  me  was  set  aside,  she  felt 
a  certain  regret,  although  the  scheme 
in  some  respects,  had  ceased  to  please 
her.      But,    0    mystery    of  women's 


66  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

hearts !  the  trial  which  she  hastened 
to  meet  became  a  cruel  one  when 
it  was  offered  her.  She  was  ready 
to  accept  the  bitter  cup  which  her 
own  hands  had  prepared ;  she  now 
shrank  from  that  which  I  offered  her, 
although  I  had  done  my  utmost  to 
make  it  sweet  to  her.  Terrible  result 
of  excessive  delicacy  !  The  brother 
and  sister  who  had  loved  each  other 
so  fondly  were  at  last  forced,  for  lack 
of  speaking  with  sufficient  frankness, 
to  lay  traps  for  each  other  unwittingly, 
to  seek  and  not  to  find  each  other. 
Those  were  very  bitter  days  for  us. 
"We  went  through  all  the  storms  and 
tempests  known  to  love.  When  she 
told  me  that,  when  she  suggested  my 
marriage,  it  was  only  to  try  if  I  were 
sufficient  unto  her,  when  she  declared 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  67 

that  the  moment  of  my  union  to 
another  must  be  that  of  her  departure, 
the  arrow  entered  into  my  soul.  Was 
the  feeling  that  she  felt  an  undivided 
one  ?  did  she  really  wish  to  oppose 
the  union  which  I  desired  ?  Certainly 
not.  It  was  the  tempest  of  a  passionate 
soul,  the  revolt  of  a  heart  violent  in 
its  love.  So  soon  as  she  and  Cornelia 
Scheffer  met,  each  conceived  for  the 
other  the  affection  which  afterwards 
became  so  sweet  to  them  both.  Ary 
Scheffer's  grand  and  lofty  ways  took 
possession  of  her  and  carried  her  away. 
She  recognized  that  there  was  here 
no  room  for  vulgar  littlenesses  and 
mean  susceptibilities.  She  wished  to 
yield ;  but  at  the  decisive  moment 
the  woman  was  rearoused  ;  she  had 
no  more  power  to  yield. 


68  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

At  last,  I  was  compelled  to  put  an 
end  to  this  cruel  uncertainty.  Forced 
to  choose  between  two  affections,  I 
sacrificed  all  to  the  one  of  older  date, 
to  the  one  which  seemed  most  like 
duty.  I  informed  Miss  Scheffer  that 
I  could  never  see  her  again  unless 
my  dear  sister's  heart  ceased  to  bleed. 
This  was  in  the  evening ;  I  went  home 
and  told  my  sister  what  I  had  done. 
A  violent  revolution  took  place  within 
her  ;  she  felt  cruel  remorse  at  having 
prevented  a  union  desired  by  me 
and  highly  appreciated  by  her.  Next 
morning,  very  early,  she  hastened  to 
Mr.  Scheffer's  house  ;  she  spent  several 
hours  with  my  betrothed ;  they  wept 
together;  they  parted  cheerfully,  and 
friends.  In  fact,  after  my  marriage, 
as  before,  everything  was   in  common 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  69 

between  us.  It  was  her  economies 
which  made  our  youthful  household 
possible.  Had  it  not  been  for  her,  I 
could  never  have  met  my  new  respon- 
sibilities. My  confidence  in  her  good- 
ness was  such  that  the  ingenuousness 
of  such  conduct  did  not  strike  me 
until  much  later. 

These  alternations  were  prolonged  ; 
the  cruel  and  charming'  demon  of  lov- 
ing alarm,  of  jealousy,  of  sudden  re- 
volts, of  hasty  regrets,  which  dwells 
in  the  heart  of  women,  often  waked 
once  more  to  torture  her.  The  idea 
of  breaking  away  from  a  life  in  which, 
in  her  hours  of  bitterness,  she  affected 
to  find  no  place,  was  often  suggested 
by  her  saddened  speech.  But  these 
were  remnants  of  evil  dreams,  which 
gradually  faded  away.      The  delicate 


70  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

tact,  the  exquisite  heart  of  the  woman 
whom  I  had  given  her  for  a  sister, 
gained  a  complete  triumph.  In  mo- 
ments of  fleeting  reproach,  Cornelia's 
enchanting  intervention,  her  gayety, 
full  of  good  nature  and  grace,  changed 
our  tears  to  smiles ;  we  ended  by  a 
general  embrace.  The  uprightness  of 
heart  and  feeling  displayed  before  me 
by  these  two  women,  contending  with 
the  most  delicate  problem  of  love, 
won  my  admiration.  I  at  last  blessed 
the  agonies  which  had  obtained  for  me 
such  beautiful  results.  My  artless 
hope  of  seeing  another  than  myself 
complete  her  happiness,  and  introduce 
into  her  life  a  gayety  and  activity 
which  I  was  unable  to  lend  it,  was  at 
times  realized.  More  happy  than 
skilful,  I  saw  my  imprudence  turned  to 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  71 


wisdom,   and  I   enjoyed    the  fruit  of 
my  temerity. 

The  birth  of  my  little  Ary  dried 
the  last  trace  of  all  her  tears.  Her 
affection  for  the  child  was  actual  ado- 
ration. The  maternal  instinct  which 
overflowed  within  her  found  its  natu- 
ral issue  here.  Her  sweetness,  her 
inexhaustible  patience,  her  love  for 
all  that  is  simple  and  good,  inspired 
her  with  inexpressible  affection  for 
children.  It  was  a  sort  of  religious 
worship,  in  which  her  melancholy 
nature  found  an  infinite  charm. 
When  my  second  child  was  born,  a 
daughter  whom  I  lost  in  a  few  months, 
she  repeatedly  told  me  that  this  little 
girl  had  come  to  take  her  place  with 
me.  She  loved  the  thought  of  death, 
and  took  endless  pleasure  in  it :  "  You 


72  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

will  see,  clear  ones,"  she  would  say, 
"  that  the  little  flower  which  we  have 
lost  will  leave  us  a  very  sweet 
perfume." 

The  image  of  that  sweet  little  dead 
baby  was  long-  sacred  to  her.  Thus 
united  with  our  sorrows  and  our  joys 
with  all  the  strength  of  her  exquisite 
sensibility,  she  at  last  completely  ac- 
cepted the  new  life  in  which  I  had 
made  her  a  partner.  I  count  it  as  one 
of  my  great  moral  satisfactions  that  I 
could  realize  in  the  two  women  whom 
fate  has  attached  to  my  life,  this 
masterpiece  of  abnegation  and  pure 
devotion.  They  loved  each  other 
with  a  lively  affection,  and  I  have 
now  the  consolation  to  feel  that  there 
is  one  beside  me  whose  grief  almost 
equals  mine.      Each  of  them  had  her 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  73 


distinct  place  with  me,  and  this  with- 
out division  or  exclusion.  Each  of 
them  in  her  own  way  was  all  in  all  to 
me.  A  few  davs  before  her  death,  at 
a  moment  when  she  seemed  to  have 
a  foreboding  of  her  approaching  end, 
my  sister  uttered  words  which  showed 
me  that  the  old  wound  was  completely 
healed,  and  that  only  the  memory  of 
past  bitterness  remained. 


V. 


In  May,  1860,  when  the  Emperor 
offered  me  a  scientific  mission  to 
ancient  Phoenicia,  she  was  one  of  the 
persons  who  most  strongly  advised 
me  to  accept.  Her  political  opinions 
were  those   of  very  firm  liberalism ; 


74  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

but  she  thought  that  all  party  feelings 
should  be  set  aside  when  there  was 
an  opportunity  to  carry  out  a  plan 
which  seemed  good,  and  from  which 
there  was  nothing  to  be  gained  but 
clanger.  It  was  from  the  first  cle- 
cicled  that  she  should  go  with  me. 
Accustomed  to  her  care  and  to  the 
excellent  aid  which  she  lent  me  in  all 
my  labors,  I  also  needed  her  to  man- 
age the  expenses  and  keep  the  ac- 
counts. This  she  did  with  scrupulous 
care,  and,  thanks  to  her,  I  was  en- 
abled for  a  whole  year  to  conduct  a 
very  complicated  enterprise  without 
being  for  an  instant  hampered  by 
material  cares.  Her  activity  amazed 
all  who  saw  her.  Without  her,  in- 
dubitably I  could  never  in  so  short  a 
space  of  time  have  executed  the  pos- 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  75 

sibly  too  extensive  programme  which 
I  had  laid  out  for  myself. 

She  never  for  a  moment  left  me. 
On  the  loftiest  peaks  of  Lebanon,  as 
well  as  in  the  deserts  of  the  Jordan, 
she  followed  me  step  by  step,  saw  all 
that  I  saw.  Had  I  died,  she  could 
have  related  my  travels  almost  as 
well  as  I  could  myself.  The  terrible 
mountain  paths  and  the  privations 
inseparable  from  such  explorations 
never  deterred  her.  My  heart  again 
and  again  sunk  within  me  when  I 
saw  her  tottering  on  the  verge  of  a 
precipice.  She  displayed  rare  strength 
on  horseback.  She  would  travel  eight 
or  ten  hours  a  day.  Her  health, 
usually  frail  enough,  was  firmly  up- 
held by  the  power  of  her  will ;  but 
her  whole  nervous  system  was  strung 


76  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

to  a  pitch  which  was  betrayed  by  vio- 
lent attacks  of  neuralgia.  Two  or 
three  times,  in  the  midst  of  the  desert, 
she  fell  into  a  condition  which  alarmed 
us.  Her  courage  deceived  us.  She 
had  embraced  my  scheme  of  research 
with  such  passion  that  nothing  could 
part  her  from  me  until  it  was  fully 
accomplished. 

Moreover,  this  journey  was  the 
source  of  very  keen  enjoyment  to 
her.  I  may  truly  say  that  it  was  her 
only  year  without  tears,  and  almost 
the  sole  reward  of  her  life.  The 
freshness  of  her  impressions  was  unim- 
paired ;  she  yielded  to  the  sensations 
of  this  new  world  with  the  artless  joy 
of  a  child.  Nothing  can  equal  the 
charm  of  Syria  in  spring  and  autumn. 
A  balmy  air  pervades  all  nature,  and 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  77 

seems  to  lend  life  something  of  its 
own  lightness.  The  most  beautiful 
flowers,  fine  cyclamens  particularly, 
spring  abundantly  from  every  crevice 
of  the  rocks :  in  the  plains  bordering 
on  Amrit  and  Tortosa,  the  feet  of 
the  horses  crush  thick  carpets  of  the 
rarest  flowers  of  our  garden  beds. 
The  streams  flowing  from  the  moun- 
tain are  in  delightful  contrast  with  the 
fierce  sun  which  drinks  them  up. 

Our  first  halt  was  at  the  village  of 
Amschit,  three  quarters  of  an  hour 
away  from  Jebail  (Byblus),  founded 
some  twenty  five  or  thirty  years  ago 
by  the  rich  Maronite,  Mikhael  Tobia. 
Zakhia,  Mikhael's  heir,  made  our 
stay  extremely  agreeable.  He  gave 
us  a  pretty  house  from  which  we 
overlooked  Byblus  and  the  sea.      The 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 


gentle  manners  of  the  natives,  their 
constant  attentions,  the  affection  which 
they  conceived  for  us  and  especially 
for  her,  touched  her  deeply.  She 
loved  to  return  to  this  village,  and  we 
made  it,  as  it  were,  our  centre  of 
action  for  the  whole  region  of  Byblus. 
The  village  of  Sarba,  near  Djouni, 
the  abode  of  the  good,  kind  Khadra 
family,  well  known  to  all  Frenchmen 
who  have  travelled  in  the  Orient,  also 
became  a  favorite  spot  with  her. 
The  delicious  harbor  of  Kastoria, 
with  the  villages  along  its  shores,  its 
convents  clinging  to  every  peak,  its 
mountains  plunging  into  the  sea,  and 
its  pure  waves,  enchanted  her ;  every 
time  that  we  reached  it,  coming  from 
Jebail,  by  the  cliffs  to  the  north,  a 
hymn   of  joy   rose   from   her   heart. 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  70 


She  was  greatly  attached  to  the 
Maronites,  speaking  generally.  Her 
visit  to  the  convent  of  Bkerke,  where 
the  patriarch  then  lived,  in  the  midst 
of  bishops  of  rural  simplicity,  left  a 
very  agreeable  memory.  On  the 
other  hand,  she  felt  the  utmost  aver- 
sion for  the  petty  European  gossip  of 
Beyroot,  and  the  barrenness  of  cities 
such  as  Sidon,  where  the  Mussulman 
type  prevails.  The  vast  spectacles 
which  she  witnessed  at  Tyre  en- 
chanted her;  in  the  lofty  pavilion 
which  she  occupied,  she  was  literally 
rocked  by  the  tempest.  The  wander- 
ing life,  so  attractive  in  the  long  run, 
became  dear  to  her.  My  wife  every 
evening  invented  a  thousand  excuses 
to  persuade  her  not  to  stay  alone  in 
her  tent ;  she   yielded  after  a  slight 


80  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

resistance  ;  she  delighted  in  that  close 
and  common  atmosphere,  together 
with  those  who  loved  her,  in  the 
midst  of  the  wild  immensity. 

But  it  was  above  all  her  journey  to 
Palestine  that  enraptured  her.  Jeru- 
salem with  its  matchless  memories, 
Naplouse  and  its  lovely  valley, 
Carmel,  flowery  in  spring,  Galilee 
particularly,  an  earthly  paradise  laid 
waste,  but  where  the  Divine  breath 
is  still  apparent,  held  us  for  six  weeks 
captive  to  a  magic  spell.  From  Tyre 
and  Oum-el-Awamid,  we  had  already 
made  several  little  trips  of  about  a 
week  each,  in  the  direction  of  the  an- 
tique regions  of  Asher  and  Nephtali, 
which  have  witnessed  such  great 
deeds.  When  I  showed  her  for  the 
first   time,    from    Kasyoum,    beyond 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  81 

Lake  Haleh  (the  waters  of  Merom), 
the  entire  region  of  the  upper  Jordan, 
and  in  the  distance  the  bed  of  Lake 
Gennesareth,  the  cradle  of  Christian- 
ity, she  thanked  me,  and  told  me 
that  I  had  repaid  her  for  her  whole 
life  by  showing  her  those  places. 
Superior  to  the  narrow  sentiment 
which  attaches  historic  memories  to 
material  objects,  almost  always  apoc- 
ryphal and  destitute  of  any  solid 
title  to  veneration,  she  looked  for  the 
spirit,  the  idea,  the  general  impres- 
sion. Our  long  expeditions  in  that 
beautiful  land,  Mount  Hermon  always 
before  us,  its  ravines  alone  being  dis- 
tinguishable upon  the  azure  of  the 
sky  as  lines  of  snow,  are  graven  on 
our  memory  like  dreams  of  another 
universe. 

6 


82  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

In  the  month  of  July,  my  wife, 
who  had  been  with  us  since  January, 
was  forced  to  leave  us  in  obedience 
to  other  duties.  The  excavations  had 
been  made,  the  army  had  evacuated 
Syria.  We  were  left  alone  together 
to  superintend  the  removal  of  the 
objects  discovered,  to  complete  the 
exploration  of  upper  Lebanon,  and 
to  prepare  for  a  final  campaign  in 
Cyprus  during  the  following  autumn. 
I  now  regret  most  bitterly  my  decision 
thus  to  prolong  our  stay  in  Syria 
during  the  months  most  dangerous 
to  Europeans.  Our  last  journey  to 
Lebanon  greatly  exhausted  her.  We 
remained  three  days  at  Maschnaka, 
beyond  the  river  Adonis,  living  in 
a  mud  hut.  The  constant  transition 
from   the   cold   valleys  to  the  torrid 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  83 

rocks,  the  poor  food,  the  necessity  of 
spending  the  night  in  ceiled  houses, 
which,  if  we  would  not  suffocate, 
must  be  thrown  wide  open,  sowed  in 
her  the  seed  of  nervous  pains,  which 
speedily  developed.  On  leaving  the 
deep  valleys  of  Tannourin,  after 
sleeping  at  the  convent  of  Mar- 
Jakoub,  on  one  of  the  steepest  peaks 
in  that  region,  we  entered  the  scorch- 
ing neighborhood  of  Toula.  The 
abrupt  contrast  overcame  us.  About 
eleven  o'clock,  at  the  village  of  Helta, 
she  was  attacked  by  intense  pain.  I 
made  her  rest  in  the  priest's  poor  hut ; 
farther  on,  while  I  was  copying  some 
inscriptions,  she  tried  to  sleep  in  a 
chapel.  But  the  native  women  would 
not  let  her  rest ;  they  crowded  about 
to  see  her,  to  touch  her.     At  last  we 


84  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

reached  Toula.  There  she  passed 
two  days  in  extreme  agony.  We 
were  destitute  of  all  supplies.  The 
rude  simplicity  of  the  natives  added 
to  her  torments.  Never  having  seen 
a  European,  they  took  the  house  by 
storm,  and  when  I  went  out  to  make 
my  researches  they  tormented  her  in 
an  unendurable  style.  As  soon  as 
she  was  able  to  ride  a  horse,  we  went 
to  Amschit,  where  she  felt  somewhat 
better.  But  her  left  eye  was  affected  ; 
the  vision  of  that  eye  was  weakened, 
and  at  times  she  suffered  from  true 
diplopia.1 

The  intense  heat  along  the  coast 
and  our  fatigued  condition  led  me  to 
fix  our  residence  at  Ghazir,  a  point 

1  A  disease  of  the  eye  in  which  objects  appear 
double,  and  even  triple. 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  85 

situated  at  a  great  height  above  the 
sea,  at  the  head  of  Kesrouan  bay. 
We  took  leave  of  our  good  people  of 
Anischit  and  Jebail.  The  sun  was 
setting  as  we  reached  the  mouth  of 
the  river  Adonis ;  there  we  rested. 
Although  she  was  by  no  means  free 
from  pain,  the  voluptuous  calm  of  that 
beautiful  spot  took  possession  of  her  ; 
she  had  a  interval  of  gentle  gayety. 
We  climbed  Grhazir  mountain  by 
moonlight ;  she  was  full  of  content, 
and  we  thought,  when  we  left  the 
burning  coast,  that  we  had  left  behind 
us  the  causes  of  the  sufferings  which 
we  had  found  there. 

Ghazir  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  spots  in  the  world ; 
the  neighboring  valleys  are  full  of 
delicious    verdure,    and   the    slope  of 


86  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

Aramun,  a  little  higher  up,  is  the 
most  charming  landscape  which  I  saw 
in  Lebanon ;  but  the  native  popu- 
lation, spoiled  by  contact  with  the 
would  be  aristocratic  families  of  the 
country,  does  not  possess  the  usual 
good  qualities  of  Maronite  people. 
There  we  found  a  little  house,  with  a 
pretty  vine  arbor.  Here  we  took  a 
few  days  of  very  sweet  rest.  We  had 
snow  from  the  crevices  of  the  high 
mountain.  Our  poor  travelling  com- 
panions, my  sister's  Arab  mare  and 
my  mule  Sada,  grazed  before  our  eyes. 
For  the  first  two  weeks,  Henrietta 
suffered  far  less  ;  then  the  pains  dis- 
appeared, and  God  at  last  granted  her 
a  few  days  of  pure  happiness  before 
she  left  this  earth. 

Those  days  have  left  an  ineradicable 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  87 

impress  on  my  memory.  The  delays 
inseparable  from  the  difficult  trans- 
actions which  we  were  just  then  com- 
pleting, left  me  ample  leisure.  I 
resolved  to  write  out  all  the  ideas  in 
regard  to  the  life  of  Jesus  which  had 
been  germinating  in  my  mind  since  my 
stay  in  the  land  of  Tyre  and  my  jour- 
ney to  Palestine.  As  I  read  the  Gos- 
pels in  Galilee,  the  personality  of  that 
great  Founder  had  vividly  appeared  to 
me.  In  the  midst  of  the  profoundest 
repose  imaginable,  I  wrote,  with  the 
aid  of  the  Gospels  and  Josephus,  a 
"  Life  of  Jesus,"  which  I  continued  at 
Ghazir  up  to  the  last  journey  of  Jesus 
to  Jerusalem.  Delicious  and  all  too 
fleeting  hours,  oh  may  eternity  be 
like  you  !  From  morning  till  night 
I  was  as  if  intoxicated  with  the  idea 


88  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

which  was  unfolded  before  me.  I 
slept  with  it,  and  the  first  beams 
of  the  sun  appearing  behind  the 
mountain  revealed  it  to  me  clearer 
and  more  vivid  than  the  night  be- 
fore. Henrietta  was  day  by  day 
familiar  with  the  progress  of  my 
task ;  as  I  wrote  a  page,  she  copied  it. 
"  This  book,"  she  said  to  me,  "  will 
be  very  dear  to  me  ;  in  the  first  place, 
because  we  have  done  it  together,  and 
then  because  it  pleases  me."  Her 
mind  was  never  before  so  elevated. 
In  the  evening  we  paced  up  and 
down  our  terrace  by  the  light  of 
the  stars :  she  then  shared  with  me 
her  reflections,  full  of  profundity  and 
tact,  some  of  which  were  genuine 
revelations  to  me.  Her  joy  was  com- 
plete,   and   those    were   undoubtedly 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  89 

the  sweetest  moments  of  her  life. 
Our  intellectual  and  moral  com- 
munion had  never  before  reached 
such  a  degree  of  intimacy.  She  told 
me  several  times  that  these  days  were 
her  paradise.  A  sense  of  sweet  sad- 
ness was  mingled  with  it.  Her  pains 
were  only  lulled  to  sleep ;  they  waked 
again  at  intervals,  like  a  fatal  warn- 
ing. She  then  complained  that  fate 
should  be  so  miserly  with  her,  and 
should  snatch  away  the  only  hours  of 
perfect  joy  which  it  had  ever  granted 
her. 

In  the  early  days  of  September, 
further  stay  at  Ghazir  was  rendered 
very  inconvenient  for  me  by  the  needs 
of  the  mission,  which  required  my 
presence  at  Beyroot.  We  bade  fare- 
well, not  without  tears,  to  our  house 


90  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

at  Grhazir,  and  for  the  last  time  we 
traversed  the  beautiful  road  along  the 
Chien  River,  with  which  for  a  year 
we  had  been  so  familiar. 

Although  the  heat  was  very  great, 
we  spent  some  pleasant  moments  at 
Beyroot.  The  days  were  oppressive, 
but  the  nights  were  delicious,  and 
every  evening  the  view  of  Sannin, 
robed  by  the  setting  sun  in  an 
Olympian  atmosphere,  was  a  feast 
for  the  eyes.  The  arrangements  for 
transportation  were  almost  completed  ; 
nothing  remained  for  me  to  do  but  to 
take  the  journey  to  Cyprus.  We 
began  to  talk  of  returning ;  we  al- 
ready dreamed  of  soft,  pale  suns, 
the  cool,  damp  feeling  of  Northern 
autumns,  those  green  meadows  on 
the  shores  of  the  Oise  which  we  had 


MY    SISTER    IIENRIETTA.  91 

traversed  at  the  same  season  two 
years  before.  She  dwelt  with  pleas- 
ure on  the  joy  of  embracing  little  Ary 
and  our  old  mother.  She  had  certain 
melancholy  moods  when  all  her  fam- 
ily reminiscences  recurred  to  her  ;  at 
such  moments,  she  would  talk  to  me 
of  our  father,  of  his  kind,  humble, 
tender,  and  gentle  soul.  I  never  saw 
her   more  attractive,  more  sublime. 

On  Sunday,  September  15,  Admiral 
Le  Barbier  de  Tinan  informed  me 
that  the  Cato  would  devote  a  week 
to  fresh  attempts  to  dislodge  two 
great  sarcophagi  at  Jebail,  which  it 
had  at  first  been  judged  impossible 
to  remove.  My  presence  at  Jebail 
during  that  week  was  not  needful ; 
it  would  have  been  enough  had  I 
embarked  on  the  Cato  to  give  certain 


92  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

suggestions,  returning  by  land  to 
Beyroot.  But  I  knew  that  sepa- 
rations of  this  sort  displeased  her. 
Besides,  as  she  was  very  fond  of  stay- 
ing at  Amschit,  I  hit  upon  another 
plan  :  for  both  of  us  to  set  sail  on  the 
Cato,  spend  the  week  at  Amschit  and 
return  with  the  Cato.  We  did  indeed 
start  on  Monday.  Ever  since  the 
previous  evening  she  had  been 
slightly  indisposed ;  but  the  passage 
did  her  good.  She  greatly  enjoyed 
the  view  of  Lebanon  in  all  the  splen- 
dor of  summer,  and  while  I  went,  with 
the  chief  officer,  to  arrange  for  the 
removal  of  the  sarcophagi,  she  rested 
quietly  on  board.  That  evening, 
when  the  sun  had  set,  we  went  up  to 
Amschit.  Our  good  friends,  who  had 
not  expected  to  see  us  again,  received 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  93 

us  with  open  arms.  She  was  entirely 
contented.  After  dinner,  we  spent  a 
part  of  the  nig] it  on  the  terrace  of 
Zakhia's  house.  The  sky  was  won- 
derful ;  I  reminded  her  of  that  pas- 
sage in  the  book  of  Job  where  the  old 
patriarch  boasts,  as  a  rare  merit,  that 
he  has  never  carried  his  hand  to  his 
mouth  in  token  of  adoration  when  he 
saw  the  army  of  the  stars  in  its  splendor 
and  the  moon  advancing  with  majesty. 
•All  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  faiths  of 
Syria  seemed  to  spring  to  life  before 
us.  Byblos  lay  at  our  feet ;  towards 
the  south,  in  the  sacred  region  of 
Lebanon,  loomed  the  strange  inden- 
tations of  the  cliffs  and  forests  of 
Jebel-Mousa,  where  legend  places 
the  death  of  Adonis ;  the  sea,  curv- 
ing  to    the     north    towards    Botrys, 


94  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

seemed  to  surround  us  on  two  sides. 
That  day  was  the  last  perfectly  happy 
day  of  my  life  ;  henceforth,  all  joy 
will  take  me  back  to  the  past,  and 
will  recall  her  who  is  no  longer  here 
to  share  it. 

On  Tuesday,  she  was  less  well. 
Still  I  was  not  yet  alarmed ;  this  in- 
disposition seemed  to  me  nothing 
compared  with  those  which  I  had 
seen  her  endure.  I  had  again  en- 
thusiastically taken  up  my  "  Life  of 
Jesus "  ;  we  worked  all  day,  and  at 
night  she  was  as  cheerful  as  ever  on 
the  terrace.  On  Wednesday,  the 
trouble  increased.  I  then  determined 
to  ask  the  surgeon  of  the  Cato  to  visit 
her.  He  expressed  no  anxiety.  On 
Thursday,  she  was  in  the  same  condi- 
tion.   But  the  day  was  made  ominous 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  95 

to  us  by  the  fact  that  I  was  attacked 
in  my  turn.  I  had  reached  the  end 
of  my  mission  without  serious  illness. 
By  a  fatal  chance,  the  memory  of 
which  will  haunt  me  all  my  life  like 
a  nightmare,  the  only  moment  when 
I  was  forced  to  surrender  was  the 
one  when  I  should  have  watched 
by  her  dying  bed. 

On  Thursday  morning,  I  had  oc- 
casion to  go  down  to  the  harbor  of 
Jebail  to  confer  with  the  comman- 
dant. As  I  came  back  to  Amschit,  I 
was  conscious  that  the  sun,  reflected 
from  the  burning1  rocks  of  which  the 
hill  is  composed,  had  affected  me.  In 
the  afternoon,  I  had  a  violent  attack 
of  fever,  together  with  fierce  twinges 
of  neuralgia.  It  was  really  the  same 
trouble  which  killed  my  poor  sister. 


96  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

The  doctor  of  the  Cato,  skilful  as  he 
was,  did  not  recognize  it.  These 
pernicious  fevers  occur  in  Syria  with 
symptoms  which  none  but  doctors 
who  have  lived  in  the  country  recog- 
nize. Sulphate  of  quinine  given  in 
very  large  doses  might  even  then  have 
saved  us  both.  That  evening  I  felt 
that  I  was  becoming  delirious.  I  told 
the  doctor,  who,  completely  blinded 
as  to  the  nature  of  our  disease,  attached 
no  importance  to  it,  and  left  us.  I 
then  had  in  a  terrible  vision  the  ap- 
prehension of  that  which  three  days 
later  became  a  frightful  reality.  I 
shudderingly  foresaw  the  clangers 
which  we  ran  if  we  fell  alone,  with- 
out acquaintance,  into  the  hands  of 
worthy  people  destitute  of  judgment 
or   knowledge,    guided  by  the  wild- 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  97 

est  notions  in  regard  to  medicine.  I 
took  leave  of  life  with  a  feeling  of 
anguish.  The  loss  of  my  papers,  and 
of  my  Life  of  Jesus  in  particular,  ap- 
peared to  me  certain.  Our  night  was 
fearful ;  but  it  seems  that  my  poor 
sister  passed  it  more  quietly  than  I 
did,  for  I  remember  that  next  morn- 
ing she  was  strong  enough  to  say 
to  me,  "Your  night  was  one  long 
groan." 

Friday,  Saturday,  and  Sunday  hover 
before  me  like  the  scattered  fragments 
of  a  painful  dream.  The  attack  which 
came  near  carrying  me  off  on  the 
following  Monday  had  a  sort  of  retro- 
active effect,  and  almost  entirely 
effaced  the  memory  of  the  three  pre- 
ceding days.  A  fatal  chance  willed 
it  that   the   doctor  should  see  us    at 


98  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

moments  of  alleviation,  and  could  not 
foresee  the  coming  crisis.  I  still 
worked,  but  I  was  sensible  that  my 
work  was  wretched.  I  had  come  to 
the  episode  of  the  Last  Supper  in  the 
story  of  the  Passion.  When  I  reread 
those  lines  later  on,  I  found  them 
strangely  confused.  My  thoughts 
revolved  in  a  sort  of  endless  circle, 
and  throbbed  like  the  side  rod  of  an 
engine  thrown  out  of  gear.  I  recall 
various  other  particular  circumstances. 
I  wrote  to  the  Sisters  of  Charity  at 
Beyroot  to  beg  some  wine  of  quinine, 
which  they  were  the  only  people  in 
Syria  to  make  ;  but  I  was  conscious 
of  the  incoherency  of  my  letter. 

It  seems  as  if  neither  of  us  had 
a  very  clear  sense  of  the  serious  na- 
ture of  our  disease.     I  decided  that 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  99 


we  would  start  for  France  on  the 
following-  Thursday  :  "  Yes,  yes,  let 
us  go,"  said  she,  with  perfect  con- 
fidence. "  Oh  unhappy  woman  that 
I  am ! '  she  said  at  another  time, 
"  I  see  that  I  am  destined  to  suffer 
much."  On  one  of  these  two  days, 
about  sunset,  she  was  able  to  move 
from  one  room  to  the  other.  She 
was  on  the  sofa  in  the  parlor  where 
I  lay  working  as  usual.  The  shut- 
ters were  open,  our  eyes  turned  to 
Jebel-Mousa.  At  that  instant  she 
had  a  presentiment  of  her  end,  but 
not  of  so  speedy  an  end.  Her  eyes 
were  wet  with  tears ;  her  face,  drawn 
by  suffering,  recovered  a  slight  color, 
and  she  cast  a  sad,  sweet  look  with  me 
at  her  past  life.  "I  will  make  my 
will,"  she    said ;    "  you  shall    be   my 


100  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

heir.  I  have  little  to  leave,  but  still 
it  is  something ;  I  wish  you  to  build 
a  family  tomb  out  of  my  savings ; 
we  must  lie  together,  we  must  be 
close  together.  Little  Ernestine 
must  lie  with  us."  Then  she  made 
a  mental  calculation,  mapped  out 
the  interior  arrangement  with  her 
finger,  and  seemed  to  desire  a  dozen 
inches.  She  spoke  with  tears  in  her 
eyes  of  little  Ary,  of  our  aged 
mother.  She  told  me  what  I  was  to 
give  her  niece  ;  she  tried  to  think  of 
something  that  would  please  Cornelia, 
and  she  thought  of  a  little  Italian 
book  (the  "Fioretti"  of  St.  Fran- 
cis) which  M.  Berthelot  had  given 
her.  "I  have  loved  you  very  much," 
she  said  ;  "  sometimes  my  affection 
has  made  you  suffer ;    I  have   been 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  101 


unjust,  exclusive ;  but  it  is  because 
I  have  loved  you  as  no  one  loves 
in  this  generation,  as  perhaps  no 
one  should  love."  I  burst  into  tears. 
I  talked  to  her  of  our  return;  I 
brought  the  conversation  back  to 
little  Ary,  knowing  that  this  would 
move  her  pleasantly.  She  readily 
accepted  the  change  of  theme,  and 
dwelt  on  points  which  touched  her 
most.  She  again  recalled  the  dear 
memory  of  our  father.  This  gleam 
was  the  last  for  either  of  us.  We 
were  in  the  interval  of  two  attacks  of 
pernicious  fever  ;  the  final  attack  was 
delayed  but  a  few  hours.  Except 
at  moments  when  the  doctor  called, 
we  were  alone,  in  the  hands  of  our 
Arab  servants  and  the  villagers,  all 
the    other    people    belonging   to   the 


102  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

mission  having  left  or  being  occupied 
elsewhere. 

I  have  little  distinct  recollection  of 
the  fatal  Sunday,  or  rather  others 
were  forced  to  revive  for  me  these 
traces,  which  at  first  were  wholly 
obliterated.  I  continued  to  act  all 
day  but  like  an  automaton  retaining 
the  impulse  given  it.  I  still  distinctly 
recall  the  feeling  which  I  experienced 
when  I  saw  the  peasants  on  their  way 
to  mass  ;  usually,  at  that  time,  when 
it  was  known  that  we  too  would 
attend,  there  was  a  general  gathering 
in  our  honor.  It  was  decided  that 
next  morning,  before  daylight,  sailors 
should  be  sent  with  a  cot-bed  to  fetch 
my  sister,  and  that  the  Cato  should 
convey  us  directly  to  Beyroot.  To- 
wards noon,  I  must  have  been  still  at 


MY    SISTER    IIENRIETTA.  103 

work  in  my  poor  dear's  room,  for 
I  have  been  told  that  ray  books  and 
notes  were  found  there  scattered  over 
the  matting  upon  which  I  was  ac- 
customed to  sit.  In  the  afternoon, 
ray  sister  felt  very  much  worse.  I 
wrote  to  the  doctor  to  come  as  quickly 
as  possible,  suggesting  some  injury  to 
the  heart.  I  have  no  recollection  of 
having  written  this  letter,  and  when 
it  was  shown  to  me  a  few  days 
after,  it  recalled  nothing.  But  I  still 
lived,  for  Antoun,  our  servant,  told 
me  that  I  ordered  my  sister  to  be  car- 
ried into  the  parlor  which  I  used  as  a 
bedroom,  that  I  helped  him  to  lift  her 
and  that  I  remained  with  her  for  some 
time.  Perhaps  Ave  took  a  long,  last 
leave  of  each  other  then,  and  she 
spoke  sacred  words  to  me,  which  the 


104  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

terrible  sponge  that  soon  passed  over 
my  brain  has  utterly  effaced.  An- 
toun  assured  me  that  she  never  for  a 
moment  had  any  consciousness  of 
death  ;  but  he  was  so  far  from  intelli- 
gent, and  knew  so  little  French,  that 
he  may  not  have  grasped  what  we 
said  to  each  other. 

The  doctor  came  about  six  o'clock, 
accompanied  by  the  commanding  offi- 
cer. Both  thought  that  it  was  out  of 
the  question  to  think  of  transporting 
my  sister  to  Beyroot  next  day.  By  a 
strange  coincidence,  the  fit  seized  me 
while  they  were  with  us ;  I  lost  con- 
sciousness in  the  commandant's  arms. 
The  two  gentlemen,  thoroughly  up- 
right and  sensible,  but  thus  far  mis- 
taken  as  to  the  serious  nature  of  our 
condition,   held  a    council    together. 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  105 

The  doctor,  frankly  admitting  his 
inability  to  treat  a  disease  whose 
progress  baffled  him,  begged  the  com- 
mandant to  return  to  Beyroot,  and 
come  back  again  at  once  with  fresh 
help.  The  commandant  accepted  this 
advice.  But  yielding  too  implicitly 
to  the  formalities  of  Turkish  naval 
customs,  which  other  officers,  even  in 
the  absence  of  grave  reasons,  did  not 
heed,  he  did  not  start  until  four  o'clock 
on  Monday  morning.  At  six,  he  was 
at  Beyroot,  and  spoke  with  Admiral 
Paris,  who,  with  his  usual  rare  cour- 
tesy, ordered  him  to  return  imme- 
diately, after  taking  on  board  Dr. 
Louvel  of  the  Algesiras,  the  chief  sur- 
geon of  the  squadron,  and  Dr.  Suquet, 
the  French  officer  of  health  at  Bey- 
root, —  universally  acknowledged  to 


106  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

be  the  one  of  all  French  physicians 
who  had  studied  Syrian  diseases 
most  thoroughly. 

At  half-past  ten,  all  these  gentle- 
men were  at  Amschit.  Almost  simul- 
taneously, Dr.  Gaillardot  arrived  by 
land.  Since  the  previous  evening, 
we  had  both  lain  unconscious,  face 
to  face,  in  Zakhia's  large  parlor, 
cared  for  only  by  Antoun.  The  good 
Zakhia  family  stood  about  us,  weep- 
ing and  protecting  us  from  the  priest, 
a  sort  of  madman  who  insisted  upon 
nursing  us.  I  am  told  that  my  sister 
gave  absolutely  no  sign  of  conscious- 
ness during  the  whole  of  this  time. 
Dr.  Suquet,  to  whom  of  course  our 
treatment  was  left,  soon  saw,  alas  ! 
that  it  was  too  late  for  her.  Every 
effort  to  produce   a  reaction    was  in 


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MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  107 

vain.  Sulphate  of  quinine,  which, 
administered  in  large  doses,  is  the 
sovereign  remedy  in  these  terrible 
attacks,  could  not  be  swallowed.  Oh, 
can  it  be  that  a  few  hours  earlier 
these  fresh  attentions  would  have 
saved  her  !  One  cruel  thought  at 
least  will  forever  haunt  me.  Had  we 
stayed  at  Beyroot,  although  the  attack 
might  not  have  been  warded  off,  yet 
Dr.  Suquet,  called  in  time,  in  all  prob- 
ability might  have  conquered  it. 

All  day  Monday  my  noble,  tender 
friend  lay  dying.  She  expired  on 
Tuesday,  September  24,  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  Maro- 
nite  priest,  summoned  at  the  last  mo- 
ment, administered  extreme  unction 
according  to  his  rite.  Sincere  tears 
were   not    lacking    beside    her  dead 


108  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

body  ;  but,  0  God !  who  could  have 
told  me  that  the  day  would  come 
when  my  Henrietta  should  pass  away 
within  two  feet  of  me  and  I  not  re- 
ceive her  last  breath !  Yes,  had  it 
not  been  for  the  fatal  swoon  which 
overtook  me  on  Sunday  night,  I 
believe  that  my  kisses,  the  sound  of 
my  voice,  would  have  held  back  her 
soul  a  few  hours  longer,  —  long- 
enough,  perhaps,  for  salvation.  I 
cannot  persuade  myself  that  her  loss 
of  consciousness  was  so  complete  that 
I  could  not  have  broken  through  the 
spell.  Two  or  three  times,  in  fever 
dreams,  I  have  been  tormented  by 
a  terrible  doubt.  I  have  thought  I 
heard  her  call  me  from  the  vault  in 
which  her  body  was  laid !  The 
presence  of  French  physicians  at  the 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  109 

moment  of  her  death  no  doubt  forbids 
this  horrible  supposition.  But  that 
she  should  have  been  tended  by  any 
one  but  me,  that  servile  hands  should 
have  touched  her,  that  I  should  not 
have  conducted  her  funeral  rites  and 
attested  to  the  earth  by  my  tears 
that  she  was  my  well  beloved  sister, 
that  she  should  have  failed  to  see  my 
face  if  her  eye  beheld  for  one  instant 
more  the  world  which  she  was  about 
to  leave,  —  this,  this  it  is  which  will 
forever  oppress  me  and  poison  all  my 
joys.  If  she  knew  that  she  was  dying 
without  me  beside  her,  if  she  knew 
that  I  was  at  my  last  breath  at  her 
side  and  that  she  could  not  nurse  me, 
oh  then  that  heavenly  creature  must 
have  died  with  hell  in  her  heart ! 
Consciousness   is  a  thing  so  dissimilar 


110  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

both  in  its  aspects  and  in  the  memory 
of  it  which  remains,  that  I  find  it  hard 
at  times  to  be  wholly  at  ease  on  this 
point. 

Less  exhausted  than  my  sister,  I 
bore  the  large  dose  of  sulphate  of  qui- 
nine which  was  at  last  administered.  I 
recovered  some  sensation  on  Tuesday 
morning,  about  an  hour  before  my 
beloved  passed  away.  What  proves 
that  I  was  far  more  conscious  all 
through  Sunday,  and  even  during  my 
delirium,  than  my  recollections  would 
go  to  show,  is  the  fact  that  my  first 
question  was  to  ask  after  my  sister. 
"  She  is  very  ill,"  was  the  reply.  I 
continually  repeated  the  same  ques- 
tion in  the  semi-sleep  in  which  I  lay. 
"  She  is  dead,"  was  the  answer  atlast. 
It  was  useless  to  try  to  deceive  me,  for 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  Ill 

preparations  were  on  foot  to  remove 
me  to  Beyroot.  I  implored  to  be 
allowed  to  see  her ;  this  was  abso- 
lutely refused.  I  was  put  upon  the 
very  same  cot-bed  which  had  been 
intended  for  her  conveyance.  I  was 
in  a  state  of  complete  numbness ;  the 
frightful  blow  just  dealt  me  seemed  to 
me  one  of  my  feverish  hallucinations. 
I  was  devoured  by  horrible  thirst. 
A  scorching1  dream  perpetually  bore 
me  back  witli  her  to  Apheca,  to  the 
sources  of  the  Adonis  River,  under 
the  giant  nut  trees  which  grow  below 
the  cascade.  She  sat  beside  me  on 
the  cool  grass  ;  I  held  to  her  dying 
lips  a  cup  of  icy  water ;  we  both 
bathed  in  those  life  giving  springs, 
weeping,  and  with  a  sense  of  all-per- 
vasive melancholy.     It   was   not  till 


112  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

two  days  later  that  I  recovered  com- 
plete consciousness,  and  that  my  mis- 
fortune appeared  to  me  as  a  fearful 
reality. 

Dr.  Gaillardot  remained  at  Amschit 
after  our  departure  to  superintend  my 
poor  dear's  funeral.  The  people  of 
the  village,  in  whom  she  had  inspired 
great  affection,  followed  her  coffin. 
Means  for  embalming  were  wholly 
wanting ;  a  temporary  resting  place 
had  to  be  provided.  Zakhia  offered 
for  the  purpose  Mikhael  Tobia's  tomb, 
situated  at  the  farther  end  of  the 
village,  near  a  pretty  chapel,  and  in 
the  shadow  of  fine  palms.  He  only 
asked  that,  when  she  was  removed,  an 
inscription  might  show  that  a  French- 
woman had  rested  in  that  place. 
There  she  still  lies.     I  hesitate  to  take 


MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA.  113 

her  away  from  those  beautiful  moun- 
tains where  she  passed  such  sweet 
moments,  from  the  midst  of  those 
good  people  whom  she  loved,  to  lay 
her  in  one  of  our  gloomy  cemeteries, 
of  which  she  had  a  horror.  Of  course 
I  want  her  to  rest  beside  me  some 
day ;  but  who  can  say  in  what  corner 
of  the  world  he  may  fall  asleep  ?  So 
let  her  await  me  beneath  the  Amschit 
palms,  in  the  land  of  antique  mysteries, 
near  the  sacred  Byblos. 

We  know  not  the  relations  of 
great  souls  with  the  infinite  ;  but  if, 
as  everything  leads  us  to  believe, 
consciousness  be  but  a  transitory 
communion  with  the  universe,  a 
communion  which  leads  us  more  or 
less  directly  into  the  bosom  of  God, 


114  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

is  it  not  for  souls  like  hers  that  im- 
mortality is  intended?  If  man  have 
the  power  to  carve  out,  after  a  divine 
model  which  he  does  not  select,  a 
great  moral  personality,  made  up  in 
equal  parts  of  himself  and  of  the  ideal, 
it  is  surely  this  that  lives  with  full 
reality.  It  is  not  matter  that  exists, 
since  a  unit  is  not  that ;  it  is  not  the 
atom  which  exists,  since  that  is  uncon- 
scious. It  is  the  soul  which  exists, 
when  it  has  truly  made  its  mark  in  the 
eternal  history  of  the  true  and  the 
good.  Who  ever  fulfilled  this  high 
destiny  better  than  did  my  dear  one  ? 
Removed  just  as  she  attained  to  the 
full  maturity  of  her  nature,  she  could 
never  have  been  more  perfect.  She 
had  reached  the  pinnacle  of  virtuous 
life  ;  her  views  in  regard  to  the  uni- 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  115 


verse  would  not  have  been  carried 
further  ;  her  measure  of  devotion  and 
tenderness  was  running  over. 

Ah  !  but  she  might  have  been,  — 
without  a  doubt  she  might  have  been 
happier.  I  was  dreaming  of  all  sorts 
of  small,  sweet  rewards  for  her;  I 
had  imagined  a  thousand  foolish  fan- 
cies to  please  her  taste.  I  saw  her 
old,  respected  like  a  mother,  proud  of 
me,  resting  at  last  in  a  peace  without 
alloy.  I  longed  to  have  her  good  and 
noble  heart,  which  never  ceased  to 
bleed  with  tenderness,  know  a  sort  of 
calm  —  I  may  say  a  selfish  moment 
—  at  last.  God  willed  her  to  know 
here  none  but  hard  and  rough  roads. 
She  died  almost  unrewarded.  The 
hour  for  reaping  what  she  had  sown, 
for  sitting    down    and    looking   back 


116  MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA. 

upon  past  sorrows  and  fatigues,  never 
struck  for  her. 

To  tell  the  truth,  she  never  thought 
of  reward.  That  interested  view, 
which  often  spoils  the  sacrifices  in- 
spired by  positive  religions,  leading 
us  to  think  that  virtue  is  practised 
only  for  the  usury  to  be  derived  from 
it,  never  entered  into  her  great  soul. 
When  she  lost  her  religious  faith,  her 
faith  in  duty  was  not  lessened,  because 
that  faith  was  the  echo  of  her  inner 
nobilitv.     Virtue  witli  her  was  not  the 

J 

fruit  of  a  theory,  but  the  result  of  an 
absolute  disposition  of  nature.  She 
did  good  for  its  own  sake,  and  not  for 
her  own  salvation.  She  loved  the 
beautiful  and  the  true,  without  any 
of  that  calculation  which  seems  to 
say  to  God,   "Were  it   not  for  Thy 


MY    SISTER    HENRIETTA.  117 

hell    or  Thy  paradise,   I  should   not 
love  Thee." 

But  God  does  not  let  His  saints  see 
corruption.  0  heart  wherein  per- 
petually burned  so  sweet  a  flame  of 
love,  —  brain,  seat  of  such  pure 
thought,  —  fair  eyes,  beaming-  with 
kindness,  —  slender,  delicate  hand, 
which  I  have  so  often  pressed,  —  I 
shudder  with  horror  when  I  think 
that  you  are  naught  but  dust.  But 
all  here  below  is  but  symbol  and 
image.  The  truly  eternal  part  of 
each  of  us  is  his  relation  to  the  in- 
finite. It  is  in  the  recollection  of  God 
that  man  is  immortal.  It  is  there  that 
our  Henrietta  lives,  forever  radiant, 
forever  stainless, — lives  a  thousand 
times  more  truly  than  when  she 
struggled    with   her    frail    organs    to 


118  MY    SISTER   HENRIETTA. 

create  her  spiritual  person,  and  when, 
cast  into  the  midst  of  a  world  incapa- 
ble of  understanding  her,  she  obsti- 
nately sought  after  perfection.  May 
her  memory  remain  with  us  as  a 
precious  argument  for  those  eternal 
truths  which  every  virtuous  life  helps 
to  demonstrate.  For  myself,  I  have 
never  doubted  the  reality  of  the 
moral  order;  but  I  now  see  plainly 
that  the  entire  logic  of  the  system  of 
the  universe  would  be  overthrown, 
if  such  lives  were  only  trickery  and 
delusion. 


THE    END. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA      000  193  018 


